Mobile phone companies which built masts close to schools "without concern for pupils or teachers" were strongly criticised by the INTO president last night.
Denis Bohane demanded new rules which would ban the siting of phone masts near schools.
He also challenged retailers to prove that school uniforms were not made using child labour.
Speaking during the opening session of the union's annual conference in Cork the INTO president said that an independent agency was required to measure the effects of radiation from phone masts.
"Taking data from the companies themselves is like asking Jaws if it is safe to go back in the water," he said. "The unconstrained ability of mobile phone operators to put phone masts near schools is the height of irresponsibility and places children at an unquantifiable risk.
"We are demanding an end to this unregulated practice and calling for regulation forbidding the construction of masts near schools."
There was strong evidence, he said, of the health risks associated with exposure to electric and magnetic fields and electromagnetic radiation. "Recent studies show that people within 300 metres of mobile phone base stations suffer fatigue, headaches, concentration difficulties, depression, memory loss, visual and hearing disruptions, irritability, skin problems and dizziness."
In his address he also challenged clothing retailers to demonstrate that school uniforms were not being made through the use of child labour in the developing world.
He said that questions were being asked about how retailers could produce ever-cheaper school uniforms.
"Every year there is a big fuss about the high cost of school uniforms, but there is no focus on the fact that in some shops children can be dressed to go back to school for practically nothing. How can these be produced at such low costs?"
Mr Bohane challenged parents to stop and think before they bought back-to-school clothes. He added: "If child labour is being used to produce school uniforms here, then Irish people are effectively denying children in poorer countries an education."
