Senator Deirdre Clune is calling on the Minister for Health James Reilly to ban sunbed use for all children under the age of 18. This is a national issue which has been highlighted recently by the Irish Cancer Society. This month the organisation set up an undercover operation where a seventeen year old girl visited seven tanning salons to inquire about sun bed use.
“I think it is absolutely shocking that none of the seven salons involved asked the girl for her age and all of them encouraged her to use sunbeds frequently and without delay.
“The Irish cancer society has warned that the risk of potentially deadly mel-anoma increases significantly when people began tanning on sunbeds regularly before the age of 35.
“It has also been found people who use sunbeds are 20% more likely to develop skin cancer.
Another area of grave concern is that it is estimated that one in five of the 140,000 sunbed users in Ireland are aged between 15 and 24.