Taoiseach sends skin cancer warning as Ireland nears…

Taoiseach sends skin cancer warning as Ireland nears record-breaking temperatures

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has warned Irish people to be conscious of skin cancer as Ireland experienced near record-breaking temperatures.

Skin cancer is the most common cancer in Ireland, with over 13,000 new cases diagnosed every year.

Mr Martin was speaking to reporters in Tokyo, Japan on Tuesday while on an official State visit.

He said: “I don't think anyone and you know, we all like a bit of sun in Ireland when we get it, but I think there's a lot of people uncomfortable with the sheer heat of what was going on in the last number of days, and that's not good.

“Obviously people have to take protective measures in terms of some stroke and so forth and hydration.

“It's very, very important that people take all precautions and heed the advice from those in public health and have a common sense approach to it.

“The more underlying problem with this kind of weather is down the road, skin cancer and given our genetics and so on, and that I think people need to be very conscious of that.

“This is heat unlike anything we're used to.”

The Fianna Fáil leader also said the Government needs to start focusing on targeting climate change and sectoral emissions.

He said: “I think what the heat waves are showing, it's bringing it home to people.

“The enormity of the consequences of climate change.

“It's here now..one of the great difficulties politically has been that people have always felt it somewhere off the next to hill, it's not for my generation, and so on.

“As I've said before I was very taken by remarks by John Kerry who said that our children's children are going to feel the worst impacts of climate change. We can help them avoid the worst impacts - not the impact of it, there will be an impact from climate change - but the worst impacts of it, if we move now and get measures in place.”

Under the Government's Climate Action Plan, which was published last year, the agriculture sector was told it would be obliged to reduce its emissions by between 22% to 30%.

However, there has been push-back from backbench rural Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil TDs who have said it should be at the lower end of initial recommendations.

But Green Party leader Eamon Ryan is pushing for 30%.

Mr Martin said: “Again, as I've said, you know that there's a range there between 22% and 30%.

“We have to balance the need for food security.

“And that's come into sharp relief as a result of the war in Ukraine.

“You see that extraordinary efforts are being made now to try and get the grain out of Ukraine, and illustrates the war, how fragile food supplies can become pretty quickly in the world or across Europe.

“But we have to make sure that we're energy efficient in the production of food.

“And that's what the focus will be, as well as every sector, every sector having to contribute to the targets, but again, I would equally say the targets are one thing, I'm as concerned about delivery now as much as the targets of the next to the end of the decade.