Mr. Aaron Mullaniff:

It is a good question. What we are seeing in the data coming through is that refractive error is probably the largest form of vision impairment in this country. People are spending eight to ten hours per day on computers or their mobile phones. Their eyes – I am not an ophthalmologist or other kind of eye specialist, but I can answer this question – become shorter and tighter and their ocular muscles tend to contract after looking at a screen for a considerable period, which brings a level of myopia. We have what we call the 20-20-20 rule, whereby people should give their eyes a break every 20 minutes by looking 20 ft away for at least 20 seconds. Refractive error will not present as an eye disease and will not be chronic in nature, but we are seeing more and more of it. It is at the mild end, but people are also self-prescribing. They are going out and buying basic glasses in the form of easy readers in their local shops – I will not name any shops – for €2. That is actually compounding the issue of refractive error.