Dr. Kevin Kelleher:

I empathise with the Deputy if he is receiving such communications. It is unpleasant. Once or twice in my career I have been targeted in that way and it is not pleasant.

Regarding our staff, we have not quite got to that level, except on some of the social media which is not as personalised. They deal with it and there are support systems in place to assist them. It is a difficult issue. It is not uncommon in health care that people react in a bad way because they have been given bad news. It is part of our training to deal with it. That is why we spoke earlier about the need to have clinicians around. They are far more able to deal with it than some non-clinicians would be in those circumstances. They are always around to support an individual and are on call if necessary.

There has been research going on around the world on vitamin deficiency. It is not, however, as definitive, as people seem to think. One issue which it is revealing is that, like with all diseases, if one is not in the best of health when one gets a disease, one will suffer worse from it. A deficiency of certain vitamins, such as vitamin D, may have an impact. We need more research on this.

Having said that, Ireland has a problem with vitamin D deficiency per sebecause of circumstances such as skin colour, lack of sun, etc. It is an issue and there is a campaign trying to improve that.