Expansion of the mobile phone system here has been dogged by protesters who claim base stations which relay conversations and the handsets themselves are a threat to health.
While current understanding of possible risks strongly suggests that the phones and masts do not cause harm, few researchers and no official body will tell you the risks are zero.
The consumer is therefore left feeling like a juror in the OJ Simpson or Louise Woodward trials - guilt depends on whose scientists you believe.
Both camps can cite research which "strongly indicates" or "convincingly suggests" that the phones and masts are completely safe or absolutely lethal.
It might be simpler to start with what is known for sure about mobile phone use. Research from the University of Toronto, published earlier this year in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that mobile users who drive when using the phone are four-to-five times more likely to get into traffic accidents than drivers who do not use them. This puts in-car mobile use on a par with drunk driving.
Mobile phone use is also a bad idea if you have a heart pacemaker according to word from the respected Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The low-power, high-frequency microwaves emitted by the handset can interfere with the delicate electronics inside pacemakers, which are surgically implanted and used to control the heartbeat rates in many patients.
Assessing risks and health effects become much more difficult from this point. Proponents offer epidemiological studies which can find no correlation between illness and either phone use or positioning of masts. Opponents cite studies that microwave energy coming from the handset can cause "thermal effects" or hot spots in the brain.
More recent work presented by those who believe there are health implications claims to show that phone emissions were able to cause permanent changes to cells in the brains of rats. Cell changes are a key issue because if cells can be altered they might develop into cancers.
Ireland's mobile companies, Esat Digifone and Eircell obviously argue in favour of the safety of their systems. Esat has installed about 300 base stations, which relay messages from one phone to another, and claims 80,000 subscribers. "We are just another radio based system," says the company's antenna site acquisitions manager, Mr Declan Drummond.
"We believe sufficient scientific research has been done that shows that this is a safe system and not different from other radio-based systems." The company, he said, complies with the international limits and regulations imposed by the Department of Communications for radiation from masts.
"We have been in operation for 11 years and have always paid particular attention to any research coming out," said Ms Catherine O'Connor of Eircell.
"To date the findings have been that there is no conclusive evidence that there is any cause for concern."
She says the company "recognises that people have concerns about having a base station in their neighbourhood and about using a mobile phone", but there was "absolutely no way that people should be worried". Eircell has 345,000 customers and 500 base stations, she adds.
She dismisses the rat data, saying that other experts had said there was no correlation between animal and human studies of either thermal effects or cell changes.
The company has seen fit to establish "an independent forum" including four leading Irish medical and scientific experts who, for the past six months, have reviewed 1,000 pieces of published research conducted around the world. The group will report its findings next month.
The Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland does not deal with non-ionising radiation but its British counterpart, the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), does get involved in the debate. "Given normal use you can have them switched on all of the time, the sort of levels that cellphones produce are fairly trivial," an NRPB spokesman says. The current research picture, he adds, did not throw up anything conclusive about health risks. "There is no evidence there for anything, if you look at cell changes there is absolutely nothing."
He stresses, however, that this was on the basis of current research. "We don't know everything. This is a new thing we are doing. We need to fairly carefully check to make certain it is safe. At these field strengths the risks are trivial but we cannot say they do not exist."
Mr John Royds is a consultant specialising in the possible health risks associated with power lines and mobile phones and he urges a cautious approach to the issue. "You cannot say that there won't be long-term biological effects," he argues. "Can microwaves have other biological effects other than heating. The answer is yes they do."
He cites a study from the Adelaide Hospital in Australia which claimed to establish a link between phone handset radiation levels and tumour promotion in mice. He has nothing comforting to say to those who insist they need their mobile phones.
