The Department of Defence has said it will examine carefully the results of a new study which indicates that hearing levels in the Irish workforce are measurably worse than had been previously thought. A spokesman for the Department said it will assess the study's impact on the Army deafness cases.
The study, which is the first of its kind, was carried out by the Centre for Insurance Studies in University College Dublin, and examined over a thousand workers over three years. The study indicates that hearing ability among Irish workers is measurably worse than the internationally recognised standard. The research also suggests that noise exposure may not be the major reason for hearing loss.
No substantive research on noise-induced hearing loss had ever been carried out in this country before, and the lack of such information has been pointed out by judges in the army deafness cases. A spokesman for the Department of Defence said that it welcomed the report as a major contribution to research on the subject in Ireland, but added that further research was necessary to apply this new data to the Irish situation.
