Mr. David Keegan:

I suppose I am biased. As I am now the national lead for the diabetic retinopathy programme, I must declare a bias. However, it has shown us the route. If one wants to deal with conditions on a modular basis, eye care in Ireland is one of those areas which one might be able to deal with. We have been able to take a big issue, such as diabetic eye care, and develop a plan and strategy around it. We have made it a national screening programme. Proper screening programmes cover a population where a significant number of that population attend for screening and a significant number of that population are retained within that group. That is the essence of a screening programme.
Earlier there was a point made about what we can benchmark off other countries. We should be showing a lead. We have an opportunity to show a lead on diabetes because we have brought a treatment alongside the screening programme. We are the envy of those concerned in the United Kingdom around this. We also have an IT system built in around this programme so that we can track the patients, right from their screening visit with their photograph, through the treatment centre, what outcomes they have and what treatments they have. We have a fully auditable trace through.
If I may turn to Deputy Mitchell O'Connor's question as to what we would like, we would like an integrated IT system around eye care in Ireland that is accessible by all eye care providers, right from somebody in an optician's shop through to the service bodies, Fighting Blindness, NCBI or guide dogs, so that they would have a history of those individuals. Such integration would be a key point. We will show, through the diabetic programme, that such is the way to go.
On Deputy Mitchell O'Connor's questions, although that is one of the main measures we would like, the first would be the adoption of the strategy. The framework and the roadmap is here. If, as Deputy Ó Caoláin pointed out, it is adopted as Government policy, we can start working with the committee members, the policy makers, on how we will implement it. One element would be the integration of an IT system. We want the process put in place.
Looking at diabetic retinopathy as a model, the processes are now in place to prevent blindness. In a country such as the United Kingdom that has this for ten years earlier this year the British Medical Journalpublished findings which show that, for the first time since records began, diabetic retinopathy is no longer the leading cause of blindness in the working age population. That is a significant public health impact from introducing that programme. We want to get the processes in place.
We want to replicate that for the other major diseases, such as cataract, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration. Age-related macular degeneration is a crisis that is happening in this country. We can tackle it through getting the processes right, which are around access, proper treatments, and proper follow-up and care. As the Danish experience has shown, when one gets that into place, one will half the blindness rates from macular degeneration in this country. Macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in this country.
The other measure we want is the adoption of a proper research strategy within this. I will ask Dr. Meehan to elaborate on that.

I reiterate that one of the key stand-out features of the cancer strategy was the involvement and involution of research into it. I will ask Dr. Meehan to follow up on the importance of research around eye care.