Ms Kerry Lawless:

From what patients tell us, there are three sets of issues. I am not exaggerating. We have had patients present at their GP with the tick still present in their arm, the rash and symptoms to be told that there is no Lyme disease in Ireland and that it is a foreign illness. Yes, Lyme disease is in the medical textbooks and everybody accepts it is a disease but there seems to be a belief that it is something that happens outside Ireland, is very rare and could not possibly be Lyme disease, so there is that fundamental issue. Even people who are lucky enough to get a positive test such as a member in Kildare, a young mother who tested positive on the ELISA test - there is a one in two chance of testing positive and she hit the jackpot - and who also tested positive with a lumbar puncture, was not given sufficient treatment-----