The deputies pursuing a requete to change the age at which islanders would be able to have piercings in some parts of their bodies must have known that they would have been walking into a minefield even before they entered the States Chamber.
As it stands, the proposal looks likely to secure support. After all, it’s relatively non-contentious and arguably only needed because of previous meddling over permissions and restrictions which were largely upheld by piercing practitioners, and were seemingly of little concern to most families. These States members should have feared, if indeed they are not impervious, that the public would be left fuming that belly button piercing was about to be legalised for 16 and 17-year-olds, while economic growth, addressing declining living standards and the housing crisis are left untouched by a parliament more interested in, somebody’s got to say it, ‘vanity projects’.
Deputy Gavin St Pier admits that it’s not an issue to top any list of priorities, but he claims it’s been picked up and dropped three times by Health & Social Care since 2019 – a waste of resources. The requerants have aimed to fix things themselves, to the point of even drafting the new law. Maybe, as we still wrestle with the big problems, they are demonstrating how the States can juggle plenty of issues, and get results, without draining resources for no useful purpose.
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