Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree wholeheartedly with the Deputy about eating disorders. We are now recruiting into ten eating disorder teams around the country. We have seen a significant increase in general youth mental health presentations, including for body dysmorphia and eating disorders. Ten specialist teams have been set up, are being staffed and are making a big difference. This was one of the elements of the women’s health action plan for 2022 and 2023.

While we must provide healthcare services for those with eating disorders, we also need to take more action regarding smartphones and social media. I have met parents whose children’s lives have been destroyed by eating disorders in the most serious of ways. When I asked them what kicked it off, they held up their phones and said, “This is what got them.” At a BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, I saw a project concerning a platform where the young scientist had shown that, within seven clicks or likes, the content being provided through the general stream went from the most innocuous and blandest of material to the sinister glamourisation of body dysmorphia and eating disorders. What is happening is poisonous and causing a great deal of damage to young people’s mental health, including through body dysmorphia and eating disorders. We have information and we know this from around the world. I am working with Cabinet colleagues, including the Ministers, Deputies Foley and Catherine Martin, and others on having a robust response to this issue. Coimisiún na Meán is doing good work. The Online Safety Commissioner and the binding rules will help. I note they are being challenged by more than one of the platforms, but it cannot just be about helping people who find themselves in this awful position. We have to be robust.

Regarding cataracts, if people pay for private care in Ireland themselves, the HSE is not in a position to reimburse them. If they do it through the NTPF or the cross-border directive, they can and will be fully reimbursed. Legitimately based on the waiting list or not, though, none of us can elect to say that we will just go into hospital and pay privately.