In the 10 years between 2005 and 2015, incidences of skin cancer in Ireland have risen by 70%.  A recent report by the British Journal of Cancer showed that 25% of skin cancer deaths occur amongst those who work outdoors.  Morning Ireland reporter Gill Stedman went to a PJ Hegarty & Sons construction site to find out what they are doing to combat these frightening figures.

Gill met with Health and Safety Advisor Ciara Naughton who described their action plan.

"The UV station with the sun protection is standard across all PJ Hegarty and ESB sites and it's important in promoting sun safety within the industry.  The UV level is updated on a daily basis each morning, also we have our weekly toolbox talk, our briefing with the operatives.  We have our PJ Hegarty poster campaign, May being the skin safety awareness month and combined with the health and well-being bulletin."

Ciara said the uptake amongst workers has been very good and they are refilling the UV station weekly.  Gill spoke to some of those reporting for duty to find out what they thought of the initiative.

"I drive a machine so there's a lot of sun coming through the glass.  I have a brother in Australia who got skin cancer from the sun and it was him that made me aware of it so as a machine driver you need to use it.  Most lads here now I think do use it.” 

Another reported that workers would be burnt if it wasn't for the station and another again said he used the cream as he had an uncle who contracted skin cancer.

Gill also spoke with Dr Derek Power, Consultant Medical Oncologist at Mercy University Hospital and Cork University Hospital to find out more about the dangers of sun exposure.

"We don't get much sunshine in our climate but short bursts of sunshine every now and then is a very dangerous exposure to the sun so I think what we can do to protect ourselves is obviously use sunscreen with a high sun protection factor and pay particular attention to the danger times in the sun between 11 am to noon and up to about 3 pm…  The signs of melanoma would be pigmented moles on the skin that have become more pigmented or have changed colour, the borders of an area on the skin gets pigmented becoming irregular, becoming itchy, bleeding…  If you see any changes, these are concerning and you should get this checked out with your general practitioner or with a dermatologist."

Yesterday Katriona Morley Smith spoke to Ray D’Arcy about being diagnosed with Stage 4 skin cancer.  Click here to read her story.

Click here to listen to that report from Morning Ireland