RADIATION HAZARDS

Sir, Kathy Sheridan's article (April 16th), referring to the response in Ireland and the EU to the Chernobyl accident, contains…

Sir, Kathy Sheridan's article (April 16th), referring to the response in Ireland and the EU to the Chernobyl accident, contains much valid comment. She is justified in criticising scientists and national authorities for inconsistency at the time of the accident in setting the radioactivity levels at which milk and other foodstuffs should be withdrawn from use. Confusion and suspicion among the public were an inevitable result. It is also true that the proponents of nuclear power have a clear interest in downplaying the health effects of the accident.

The estimated consequences of the accident for Ireland are up to 25 additional cancer deaths over 70 years. Whether any different steps taken at the time could have reduced this number is a matter on which it is only possible to speculate. However, in highlighting as she did the Irish consequences of the accident, Ms Sheridan makes it necessary to remind your readers that there is a continuing radiation hazard of far greater magnitude to which many people in Ireland are exposed.

Occupants of an estimated 40,000 homes, which have levels of radon gas greater than the national reference level, receive radiation doses each year from radon which are at least 50 times greater than the dose received by an Irish person from Chernobyl. A corresponding number of lung cancer deaths can be expected to result. At the highest radon level found in a home in Ireland, the annual dose to the occupants was approximately 1,000 times greater than the Chernobyl dose". Furthermore, the radon hazard is one about which something simple and practical can be done once the affected houses are identified. This is the reason for the nationwide survey of radon in dwellings currently being conducted by this institute.

The Irish Times is to be commended for your extensive coverage of the 10th anniversary of Cherobyl. You are quite correct to point out that the accident affected us in Ireland. In doing this, however, should you not give proportionate coverage to the much greater radiation hazard from radon to which many Irish people are exposed? Yours, etc., Chief Executive, Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland, Clonskeagh Square, Clonskeagh Road, Dublin 14.