Ms Deirdre Seery:

They are absolute twins. We often say, if it was only HIV. One of our new services - we are constantly evolving - is sexual issues counselling. Much of that is around people not feeling good about themselves or good about their relationships. Sexual and mental health are intertwined.

I was discussing suicide prevention yesterday. Many people commit suicide as a result of sexual orientation issues that are unresolved, with people not feeling comfortable with their peers and not feeling that they can get out there and develop healthy relationships. These are intertwined issues.

The Chairman asked about the support for those in the 11 to 21 age cohort. We have different interventions for different ages. We have a school's programme that is geared towards second year students, a different programme for transition year students and other programmes for others up to 21 years.

Our booklet, The Sexual Times will be made available nationally, but we have no funding to do it yet. One can never wait for the funding. One has to do things and then hope that the funding comes. We give out The Sexual Times to pupils in every school. The booklet looks at issues such as mental health and same-sex relations, and we hope it will become available nationally. We have been distributing The Sexual Times in schools in Cork city and county for the past four years. The sky has not fallen down and we have had not a single complain from a parent. Speaking of parents, the crisis pregnancy programme has very good programmes for parents.

I will now concentrate on all the positive things that are happening, but they are all over the place and everybody does not necessarily know about them. On the question of late diagnosis for HIV, a person who is diagnosed with a CD4 count of less that 350 cells-mm3 is a late diagnosis. Some 49% of our clients were diagnosed at that stage. A very late diagnosis is when the CD4 count is less that 200 cells-mm3. We need to ensure that we get people into treatment before their CD4 falls to those levels.

Half of the people are still being diagnosed when the treatment is - while I will not say too late because it is not - not at its most effective.