Tánaiste Micheál Martin has called for a ban on 'carcinogenic' sunbeds in Ireland after a UCC study found that over 40 percent of people admit to having used a tanning bed.

Amid growing concern over the dangers associated with sunbeds, a study from University College Cork and South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital found that **41.

5 percent** of people have used tanning beds.

Nearly half (**45.

9 percent**) of those who sunbathed agreed that it was worth getting sunburned to get a tan, and more than **69 percent** reported feeling and looking better with a tan.

Less than half of respondents felt confident about what to look for when checking their skin for melanoma.

The Irish Cancer Society has said that using a sunbed once before the age of 35 increases the risk of melanoma by **60 percent**.

If you have ever used a sunbed, your risk of melanoma increases by **20 percent**.

Several politicians, including Fianna Fáil's Christopher O'Sullivan and Fine Gael Senator Tim Lombard, have called for them to be outlawed in Ireland.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin said that he would also back a ban on sunbeds.

'They are carcinogenic,' he told reporters last week.

'I faced this fundamental moral question when we did the smoking ban many years ago,' he said, speaking in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, 'When the report came back and said passive smoking was a carcinogen, it causes cancer, then the action had to be very clear in response.

It is similar to asbestos.

We had to deal with asbestos.

' 'If the evidence is.

.

.

very strong around sunbeds and cancer, then the action is clear.

The action has to be banning that.

It is injurious to the health of people.

That is why I would support a ban very clearly.

' 'Public health measures have worked in many areas in improving the quality of life, reducing illness and death.

I would have to work with the respective ministers and I don't want to give specific timelines now.

But I think a decision needs to be agreed in principle on that.

'