SF members targeted at flags removal
Flags raised at church SINN Fein members say they were “verbally abused” for taking tricolours down after they were put up at a Protestant church.
The party blamed an “anti-community element” for erecting them on scaffolding at the Church of Ireland in Rostrevor, Co Down, over the weekend.
Sinn Fein MLA Sinead Ennis praised those involved in taking them down.
She said: “Party activists quickly removed the flags despite being verbally abused by the man responsible for erecting them.
“He clearly doesn’t know or care that it is a symbol of peace between our two main traditions.
“The actions of one individual don’t reflect the will of the people of Rostrevor.” UNDERCOVER volunteer teenage girls are helping the HSE stamp out “rogue” operators selling sunbed sessions to minors.
Last year’s HSE figures show it ramped up its enforcement activity with 47 “test purchase inspections”.
Five operators were found to be flouting the law by selling to minors. This compared to 25 test inspections by the HSE which uncovered six businesses breaking the regulations in 2016. In the past three years, 69 infringements have been recorded.
The HSE said it regards the primary purpose of its Public Health (Sunbeds) Act 2014 as the protection of minors and it states the main evidence of the success of the legislation can be seen in the reduction in noncompliant test purchasing inspections. The sunbed laws were only introduced four years ago and the HSE statistics provided to Fine Gael TD Kate O’connell arising from a written Dail question show that over the three years sunbed operators have made 111 infringements relating to bogus health claims from sunbed sessions.
CLAIMS
According to a HSE spokesperson, examples of the health claims that resulted in non-compliances include “this sunbed is a safer way of tanning” “get more Vit D” and “Vit D for your life”. A number of operators had multiple noncompliances and the number of operators found to be non-compliant last year was 140 compared to 208 in 2016 and 185 in 2015.
The figures show last year 32 infringements were recorded by sunbed traders relating to certain marketing practices.
And 81 related to “prescribed warning signs” and 73 infringements were with reference to health information.
A HSE spokeswoman said: “The reduction in overall infringements is indicative of an increase in compliance and understanding of the law and the continued enforcement and advisory activity from the Environmental Health Service.
“While inspection numbers have reduced by a small margin the actual percentage of non-compliance inspection outcomes has reduced from 56% in 2016 to 44% in 2017.”
They added the HSE’S implementation of the legislation with the sunbed industry can be considered a success based on the continued decrease in recorded infringements since 2015 and the decrease in overall non-compliant inspection outcomes.
The spokeswoman also pointed to the high compliance rate with the requirement for a sunbed business operator to notify their business to the HSE annually – where less than 2% failed to notify the HSE in 2017.
She said the implementation of the legislation by the HSE has been further streamlined with the introduction of an online payment service to enable electronic notifications and payments.
Test buy inspections were carried out by the HSE last year
Sunbed operators were found to be breaking rules on sales to minors