Ms Deirdre Seery:

That is right. Since 1997, and even before that, we have developed really good partnerships. We are not in all of the schools. We would like to be in more but we are getting there. In turn, young people come to us for further information. The programme is definitely a good partnership.

In terms of stigma, one of the things that we have not talked about is disclosure to partners with whom one might be having sex when one is not in a regular relationship. Such disclosure is one of the really hard things for people to do. When one starts a new relationship, it is difficult to know at what stage one should tell somebody that one has HIV. That is one of the issues that comes up for us. If one does not tell the person straight away then, at some stage, if a relationship develops, one has to say: "Well, actually, I didn't tell you this all along. You weren't at risk." The other person will respond by saying: "You kept a secret from me." Yet if one tells the other person too soon and the relationship does not develop then the information is public knowledge and of course the person is stigmatised. That is another element. That is why we have a campaign called Be Sexy Stay Healthy - to try to get to the forefront of everybody's mind that one can be sexy and protect one's self. It is important that we put pleasure at the forefront of our work. People have sex because it is pleasurable and we cannot deny that is pleasurable. Therefore, we must be able to say, "Yes, have fun, have sex but it is also fun to have healthy sex". That is part of our way of dealing with the stigma around disclosure.

In terms of visibility in the national press, I agree with the remarks made by Deputy Ó Caoláin. It is very hard for an organisation to get coverage when it is located outside Dublin, but we keep trying. We do get coverage in the local media. It would be nice if the national press was truly a national press.