The Health Minister faced a barrage of questions in the States about his Ministry’s advice to the Planning Department that masts posed no significant health risks.
Defending that position in the States during Ministerial questions without notice, he said that a lot of the arguments put forward by those campaigning against the masts were pseudo-science and ‘absolute rubbish’.
‘In these situations, you have to abide by realistic scientific evidence,’ he said.
Senator Syvret was asked by Deputy Roy Le Hérissier to explain the seemingly contradictory position that he was supporting a six-month moratorium on the consideration of Planning applications for masts when his Department had declared them safe.
Senator Syvret has lodged a proposition proposing the delay so that a health assessment of phone masts can be carried out alongside a look at their impact on the environment.
Yesterday, the Minister said that his cautious approach was ‘not necessarily because there were health issues’, but because he wanted to see if masts could be shared by the competing telecoms companies.
