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Seanad Transcript 25th June 2008
Mobile Phones and Masts
Senator Mark Daly: I commend Cork City Council on passing a motion by Councillor Chris O'Leary of the Green Party, which places a moratorium on all planning decisions for mobile phone masts within the city until evidence is produced that they are not harmful to people. The moratorium will not be lifted until the council is satisfied that the European environmental protection agency's precautionary principle is applied. That principle is that we should err on the side of caution when it comes to public health. If it is believed that mobile phones and masts cause cancer, we should apply the highest possible precautionary principles to them. I have received information from the University of Cambridge on the link between mobile phone usage and cancer. Last year, a Swedish study showed that one has double the risk of contracting a brain tumour if one uses mobile phones for over ten years. In light of this growing evidence, I call on the Acting Leader to ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to implement the recommendations of the Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources in the last Dáil. That committee's wide-ranging recommendations were not implemented but they should now be introduced in light of the growing evidence I have cited.
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