Mr. Aaron Mullaniff:

I am dumbfounded by the fact that there still is no strategy. Looking through the records, a national vision strategy was sounded out back in 2002 when this country signed up to WHO guidance on removing preventable blindness. We are now in 2024 and we have a situation where good initiatives are happening but they are all happening in isolation. We have two plans in the HSE model of eye care – the primary care service review and Sláintecare. However, the key takeaway here is that everybody talks about the “what” but nobody gets into the detail of how they will address it. I suppose this is why we are here today and coming here at some risk to do that. We want to put on the record that we are seeking to work with everybody and all stakeholders in this space.