Tipp house has 45 times normal radon gas levels

A HOUSE in Co Tipperary had to have special equipment installed after it was discovered it had 45 times the acceptable level of a radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer.

According to experts, if a person stayed in the room where the highest radon reading level was recorded day and night for a year he or she would be exposed to 10 times the radiation allowed to be experienced by a worker at Sellafield nuclear power plant.

But the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII) estimates almost 90,000 more Irish homes have undetected high levels of radon gas, a high number of them in the south-east and west of the country.