Mr. Aaron Mullaniff:

I can only answer that question anecdotally based on what comes through to Vision Ireland. We tend to see more people from a lower socioeconomic background come through the door, but that goes back to the fact that if a person has private health insurance and has an eye condition, or wakes up that morning with an eye condition, that person can be seen - giving the examples of cataracts, AMD or glaucoma - within a matter of weeks while we know one in three patients is waiting up to 18 months. I wish to point out that I am not aware of any other specialism that has that opportunity to avoid the condition becoming worse. We talk about 70% of blindness being entirely preventable and we need to keep that at the back of our head as well.