The highest ever level of radon gas in an Irish workplace has been discovered in the offices of a local newspaper in Co Cork with radon levels some 60 times higher than the maximum legally acceptable level, The Irish Timeshas learned.
Staff from the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland found that one of the rooms used by staff of the Corkman at its offices in Mallow had an average level of 25,500 Becquerels of radon per cubic metre compared to a maximum legally acceptable level of 400 Bq/m3.
The level detected is more than 60 times higher than the acceptable limit and it is estimated that working eight hours a day in the office would be equivalent to receiving 39 chest X-rays per day or nearly 10,000 chest X-rays in a working year.
However, the room in question at the Corkman offices at the Spa in the north Cork town was largely unoccupied and it is understood that employees of the paper, which is owned by Independent News and Media, would not have received high radiation doses.
The Corkman contacted the RPII during the summer after reporters had written a story about high levels of radon gas being found in another office building in Mallow and the RPII sent out detection kits which recorded the high levels.
Upon learning of the high levels of radon, the Corkman, a sister paper of the Kerryman, took immediate action to rectify the problem in the building which has been leased by the paper for the past six years.
