If it became law, the bill would overturn the Health Act of 1960, which introduced mandatory water fluoridation in the Republic from 1964. And it would make it an offence to add fluoride to the public water supply.
Brian Stanley first became aware of the safety concerns around fluoridation back in 1999.
“It’s been Sinn Féin policy for years to end this practice,” he says. “But this is not a party political issue – it’s an issue of public health. I will be seeking cross-party support for this bill when we debate it in the Dáil. I think there are many Dáil members, including in the establishment parties, who are already questioning the wisdom of fluoridation.”
Shanley was encouraged to read the Richie Ryan interview on the topic in Hot Press.
“It’s interesting that Richie Ryan, who was a very conservative Fine Gael Minister for Finance, is still championing the case against fluoridation,” he observes. “We can’t be slapped down as being a leftwing loony project. A few years ago, this debate was very much on the margins, whereas now, it’s moving centre-stage.”
While the best outcome would be for Stanley’s bill to bring an end to the 50-year practice of mass-medication, the first aim is to open up the debate.
“A proper debate has never really happened,” asserts Stanley. “It needs to be opened up to wider scrutiny, with international medical and scientific evidence brought into play. The government have decided on 50 years of mass-medication, making it compulsory that you ingest fluoride. When a government continues on that road, and stubbornly doesn’t even appear to be open to considering the evidence, or an alternative view, I think that should ring alarm bells.
“It’s not good enough for the Expert Body and the government to keep saying, ‘Dental health improved from 1964 onwards, since the introduction of fluoridation’. What they’re failing to say is that toothpaste at that time was becoming more widely available, it was becoming cheaper, it was being used more, and on top of that, back in the ’60s – and I remember, because I was going to national school at that time – there was a huge programme of awareness-raising for children to look after their teeth.
“Those are amongst the key reasons for the improvement in dental health in the ’60s and ’70s – not because the government decided to put mass-medication in the water supply. The fact is that non-fluoridating countries in Europe saw the same level of improvement as we did at the time.
“A major problem,” concludes Stanley, “is that we’ve no choice in all of this. The outdated and reckless theory that to improve your dental health, you must expose every cell in your body to a dangerous chemical – that’s insanity.
“If we had an honest, open, transparent debate about this, I think people would come to the conclusion that we should end it. There’d be no better way to mark the 50th anniversary of the introduction of fluoride into our water supply, than by aligning ourselves with the rest of Europe and ending the practice.”

For info on fluoride, visit fluoridealert.org and thegirlagainstfluoride.com