Page 2043 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 25 October 1989
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However, in the previous debates on this issue, Mr Berry, the Health Minister, has announced that people who are having problems with the addition of fluoride to the water, in the interim or until such time as the committee does bring down its recommendations, can seek help from the public hospital system. I think that addresses the problems that have been identified by Mr Stevenson in his debate.
I hope - and I assume that this is implied in the Minister's statements - that that implies that, if people are having difficulty drinking water with fluoride in it, fluoride-free water will be available at hospitals throughout the city. I recommend that line of action to the Minister so that it can be implemented. If that is the case, that removes the necessity for this motion. On those grounds we oppose this motion.
MR HUMPHRIES (11.46): I also want to make a very brief contribution to the debate, and that is simply to say that I am disturbed - and I have told Mr Stevenson I am disturbed - by his position in continuing to take a publicly advocated role in the fluoride debate after the Assembly has resolved to establish an inquiry into this matter and after he, as a member of that committee, presumably has begun to address his mind to the task before him.
I know that in the past he has said that he considers the relevant cut-off date for that kind of debate to be the date that the committee actually sits down and hears its first witness or begins its first meeting. I do not accept that argument. As soon as the public sees that the Assembly has established a committee to inquire into this matter, all members of that committee, the chairman and the other members, should abstain, in my view, from engaging in public debate on the question.
It disturbs me that this motion has been moved today. It disturbs me also that Mr Stevenson is engaging in debate next Monday night with dentists and doctors, presumably some of whom will be appearing before his committee and attempting to persuade him as an open-minded person that their arguments should be accepted. I would like to encourage him to withdraw this motion before it is too late.
MR STEVENSON (11.47), in reply: First of all, it was mentioned that it was an inappropriate time to introduce the motion. As the fluoride was added to the water yesterday, perhaps there can be no more appropriate time to do that. The Chief Minister said that it was an open-ended situation and it did not address just the area of social justice. But it did address the area of social justice. It also addressed the area of everybody's rights - not only those of the disadvantaged, but the others. Do they not have rights as well?
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