Ryan v Attorney General

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 31 July 1965
• Date: 31 July 1965
• Docket Number: (1962. No. 913 P.)
• Court: Supreme Court

Ryan

and

Attorney General

(S.C.)

Validity - Fluoridation of water supplied to public - Whether a violation of personal rights of citizens - Constitution of Ireland, 1937, Art. 40, 3; Arts. 41, 42 - Health (Fluoridation of Water Supplies) Act, 1960, ss. 2 (1), (2), (3), 3, 4 - Fluoridation of Water Supplies (Dublin) Regulations, 1962, Arts. 3, 5, 6, 8.

The Health (Fluoridation of Water Supplies) Act, 1960, by s. 2, imposes an obligation on a health authority (as therein defined) to arrange for the fluoridation of water supplied to the public by sanitary authorities, through pipes, before a date to be fixed by the Minister for Health. The Minister is empowered to make regulations which shall "in particular provide for the specification of the amount of fluorine (which shall not exceed one part by weight of fluorine per million parts of water) which may be added to a water supply." By s. 2 (4) of the Act, prior to making such regulations the Minister is required, inter alia, to cause to be made a survey of the incidence of dental caries in a representative sample of pupils attending full-time day schools in the functional areas of a health authority to which the regulations relate and also to have an analysis of, inter alia, the quantities of fluorine in the water supplied by sanitary authorities through pipes to the public in such functional areas. Pursuant to the Act, the Minister, in 1961, caused a survey of the incidence of dental caries among children in, inter alia, the Dublin area to be carried out by the Medical Research Council and...