Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will reflect on how best to get that message across. The HSE, in fairness to it, is a good organisation that gets much criticism for many issues. It has stepped up in promoting vaccination and the national immunisation office has done a good job with powerful patient advocates on the issue of cervical cancer and we think particularly of the late Ms Laura Brennan who did so much.

We often hear accusations that we are a nanny state and all this sort of nonsense. This is life and death, health and public good. We have vaccinations which have effectively eradicated diseases so that people of my generation think we should only read about in history books. Diseases are beginning to come back due to the misinformation being spread, often through social media, although not exclusively, and we need to be on that pitch and pushing back. We all need to work together on it. The HPV alliance was a good example of politicians, clinicians and patient advocates coming together and we need to look at other examples of that. We should not rule out any measure. We need to say we will explore every and any measure to ensure vaccination is the norm. We all need to realise it is not just a personal decision an individual is making for his or her child because it has an impact on other people's children. Vaccinations only work when there is herd immunity and enough people are vaccinated.

I welcome any guidance from the committee on this. I intend to speak to my EU counterparts about what is being done in other countries to consider how we approach schools, crèches and places where our children go on a daily basis.