David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My intention was not to disagree strongly with the Minister because we support the substance of the Bill, but I take exception to his response to the amendments. He has entirely missed the point. I do not agree with the Minister's analysis or the analogies he gave. Senator Crown hit the nail on the head when he spoke about people who would profit from the provision of sunbeds for commercial use. The wording of the amendments refers to the owner, manager or employee of a sunbed business and outlines that a person shall not sell or hire or offer for sale or hire, or permit to be sold or hired or offered for sale or hire, a sunbed. The amendments seek to prevent those who allow people to use sunbeds for profit to expose people unnecessarily to cancer. We seek to prevent those who are most at risk from using a sunbed.

The Minister said he did not want the legislation to appear to be indicative of a nanny state. He referred also to democracy and freedom of choice. If he were to follow through on the logic he would allow a person to drink and drive, smoke in a bar and, as Senator MacSharry said, to get any amount of medicine without the use of prescription. We introduce such restrictions to protect people. One is asked a series of questions by a chemist before one is allowed to purchase Nurofen or other medications which were previously freely available. The situation advances all the time and we take measures not out of any sense of the nanny state but because it is the right thing to do. It is not a question of democracy. It is genuinely democratic if we as Oireachtas Members take a decision to protect the most vulnerable people from using sunbeds. I refer to people with type 1 and type 2 skin.

There is a flaw in the Minister’s argument when he said that no GP would want to prescribe the use of a sunbed. That is not what would be asked of a GP if the amendments were accepted. We simply require that either a GP or other qualified person would carry out a skin assessment test to determine a person’s skin type. As legislators we would then prohibit people who are most at risk from using sunbeds. That is the change we seek to make. To describe the amendments as being in some way silly, suggestive of a nanny state or undemocratic is fundamentally flawed. If the Minister were to follow the same logic, we would not do a lot of things. I hope the Minister is wrong and that if we have a new Minister for Health or a new Government eventually, they will go a step further and ensure we protect people with certain skin types from the use of sunbeds that would unnecessarily expose them to cancer. I regret the fact the Minister will not accept the amendments but I will still support the Bill.