The High Court yesterday refused to grant an interlocutory injunction preventing the erection of an Esat Digifone cellular mobile base station and transmission mast within 60 metres of the national school at Easky, Co Sligo.
The parents of the schoolchildren had sought the injunction pending the hearing of an action on the matter in which they will claim that the development, which is within the territory of Easky Garda station, breaches their children's rights to bodily integrity.
The parents claimed the emission of pulsed radio frequency radiation would be dangerous to their children's health and sought injunctions restraining the erection and operation of the mast or, at the very least, restraint on the emission of radiation.
The proceedings were taken by five children, through their parents, against Esat, Ireland, the Attorney General and the Ministers for Public Enterprise, Health and the Environment.
Refusing the application yesterday, Mr Justice Geoghegan said it was his view, on the evidence before him, that it was "highly improbable at the very least that any injury will ensue to the children between now and the hearing of the action".
In those circumstances, he did not think it would be "just or reasonable" to grant the orders sought which would have "disastrous effects" for Esat's Easky project and "very considerable repercussive effects likely to damage the defendant's highly competitive business throughout the country".
Afterwards, a spokeswoman for the parents of the children said they were disappointed with the decision but stressed this was only an interim step. "We in no way consider the game to be lost."
"We plan to continue our fight against the erection of this mast by preparing for the full hearing at which we are confident that sufficient evidence will be put forward to ensure that no mast will be allowed to emit radiation a mere 60 yards from our school and our children. We do not plan to allow our children to be used as guinea pigs in this experiment."
In his judgment, Mr Justice Geoghegan addressed the scientific and expert evidence called by both sides in relation to alleged potential health effects of the development.
He had been furnished with "a vast amount" of scientific data in the form of articles and reports and affidavits from persons "who are or claim to be experts".
Given the likelihood of appeals, he said, it would be some time before the matter went to full hearing.
The judge said it would not be "possible or proper" at this stage to evaluate the evidence. But, he added, he must form a view as to whether in all the circumstances it was just and reasonable to injunct Esat. If injunctions were obtained it would close down Esat's Easky business for up to two years, and there "would almost certainly be no logical reason why analagous injunctions would not be obtained elsewhere in the country".
He outlined the evidence called for the parents from Dr Arthur Firstenberg who, the judge said, "appears to have been a long-time international campaigner in favour of the view that serious dangers to health result from radio frequency radiation" and from Dr Neil Cherry, whose qualifications includes a PhD in Atmospheric Physics and who said he had studied the way in which microwaves change the structure and behaviour of physical molecules.
He said Dr Firstenberg had contended, "based on various alleged authorities", that the children would be subjected to emissions from the base station and that most were likely to suffer from adverse mental effects as well as adverse health problems such as insomnia, bronchitis, sinusitis and vision problems.
Contrary views had been expressed by Prof Philip W. Walton, professor of applied physics at UCG, who had claimed non-ionising radiation is emitted from many electrical products such as radio and TV broadcasting antennae and many household products and that such radiation does not possess enough energy to disrupt molecules in the body, and therefore cancers could not be initiated.
The judge said that, according to Prof Walton, the main TV transmitters were much more powerful than those of Esat. Prof Walton had argued that if there were any significant health effects associated with non-ionising radiation they would have shown up unambiguously in populations exposed to radio and TV transmitters over the past 50 years.
Mr Justice Geoghegan also noted that a report filed on behalf of the State from Dr William Bailey, president of Bailey Research Associates in New York, and his principal scientist, Dr Linda S. Edreich, was sharply critical of the parents' experts' evidence.
The thrust of the criticism was that systematic methods to evaluate scientific research were not applied, he said.