Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would not be the medical expertise around that but I think these are all areas that certainly need to be considered from a prevention point of view and going into communities to see what they need on the ground right now through healthy eating, and smoking cessation of which there has been a huge uptake. The demand for the Healthy Ireland programmes is very high which is why we have more than trebled the funding to meet demand. We need to continue from the preventive space. Obviously medical interventions will always be required but if we are serious about looking at our overall health, then it is not just about hospitals, GPs and primary care centres. It is about how we live well and have a healthy lifestyle but we need to be able to facilitate people through those initiatives and base it on research, which is what the healthy weight campaign has done. It is also important that we target specific age groups.