The Office of Public Works (OPW) is being urged to scrap plans to erect a mobile-phone mast near two schools in Rathmines, Dublin, amid concerns over possible adverse health effects on pupils.
Schoolchildren from St Louis High School and St Mary's College joined environmental campaigners yesterday in a protest outside Ardee House, one of 17 OPW buildings earmarked for mobile-phone masts in the coming months.
The OPW hopes to raise €1 million annually by renting out space on top of its buildings for the erection of such antennae.
However, Green Party chairman and Dublin South East TD John Gormley said the proposed mast at Ardee Road was "ill-advised and irresponsible", given the growing body of international research recommending a "precautionary" approach to the erection of masts near schools.
He said 2001 planning guidelines banned the erection of masts on schools, hospitals and childcare centres.
Yet the former minister for communications, Dermot Ahern, told the Dáil last year: "The position which receives the lowest emissions from such an installation [as a mast] is directly underneath it".
Mr Ahern added: "In the particular case of an installation on the upper floor of a building, the aerials emit electromagnetic energy laterally away from the aerial installation."
Mr Gormley said there was an inconsistency in the Government's position.
"If you are saying the radiation goes laterally, then surely the worst place to put a mast is beside a school," he said.
A spokesman for the OPW said all installations were subject to planning guidelines, and that mobile-phone operators using the masts had to comply with current and future safety regulations.
However, Mr Gormley, who organised yesterday's protest, said Government Buildings was exempt from normal planning procedures. "There has been no democratic decision on this. There has been no scrutiny by a planning authority," he said.
