Significant amounts of young people are suffering from hearing loss, an audiologist has warned. 

According to the Irish Association of Hearing Aid Audiologists, one-in-12 Irish adults suffer from permanent hearing loss. 

Among the over 70s, this increases to 50% but it is increasingly common among young people. 

On Newstalk Breakfast, audiologist John Barnwell said he has no doubt why this is happening. 

“There’s a lot more young people coming in with earphones, the headphones,” he told reporter Josh Crosbie. 

“They’re constantly wearing them a lot longer, it’s starting to cause hearing loss.

“So, I notice a bigger footfall.” 

Mr Barnwell added that he believes young people are largely unaware of the risks that come from loud noise. 

“I don’t think they are, no. Not really,” he said. 

“They just listen to music loudly, don’t they - they listen to everything loud.” 

“People don’t realise the noise, the decibels in sound that’s causing the trouble,” he said. 

“We’re here to help them.” 

A teenage girl wearing headphones sitting alone near the sea. Picture by: Alamy.com

Also on the programme, Dr Eoin King of University of Galway said the long-term exposure to noise can trigger a “wide array of problems”. 

“Yes, it can affect your hearing but that’s really only in the extreme cases,” he said. 

“We’d be more worried about cardiovascular problems, sleep disturbance - and disturbance can lead to a cascade of problems like increased stress, immune deficiencies, things like that. 

“But what we’d be most concerned about would be the cognitive development of children. 

“Studies have shown that children who grow up in noisy environments don’t perform as well in reading tests as other kids.” 

Reform

Dr King added that Ireland is “probably a little bit behind” in terms of planning for noise.

“There’s an awful lot of legislation, an awful lot of planning around air pollution,” he said. 

“Noise would be somewhat behind that; so, there’s an awful lot more that should be done. 

“We really do need more guidance, more stringent legislation and, really, we just need the planning system and we need the authorities responsible to catch up.”

Under the Planning and Development Act 2024, a local authority may grant planning permission on condition that measures are taken to limit or prevent the “the emission of any noise or vibration from any structure or site… that might give reasonable cause for annoyance either to persons in any premises in the neighbourhood”.

Main image: A woman putting her headphones in. Picture by: Alamy.com