Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I am speaking on behalf of my colleague, the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney. I thank the Deputy for raising this matter.

The Department of Health and Children has supported sexual health at strategic and executive levels across the health sector for a number of years. At national level, policy has been formulated clearly in the report of the national AIDS strategy committee, the national health promotion strategy and the strategy of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency. All these strategies contribute to maintaining and improving sexual health in terms of education and awareness, service delivery, capacity building and research and surveillance.

The National Health Promotion Strategy 2000-2005 recognises that sexuality is an integral part of being human and healthy sexual relationships can contribute to an overall sense of well-being. The strategic aim is to promote sexual health and safer sexual practices among the population.

The health promotion unit of the Department works closely with the Health Service Executive on a range of awareness and education initiatives and interventions. These include working in partnership with the Department of Education and Science, the Health Service Executive and other youth structures to support schools and other bodies in the introduction and delivery of social personal and health education, of which relationships and sexuality education is an integral part. Included also is a national public awareness advertising campaign to promote sexual health. It is aimed at men and women in the 18 to 35 age group and is designed to increase awareness of safe sex and sexually transmitted infections.

The overall goals are to increase safe sexual practices and reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies among young people. The campaign runs in third level colleges, places of entertainment, such as pubs, clubs and discos, and youth venues and health centres. The initiatives also include the production of a range of awareness-raising leaflets on STIs and safe sex practices, and these are available nationwide.

In response to the specific issues regarding unplanned pregnancy, the Crisis Pregnancy Agency was established by statutory instrument in 2001 and is funded in its entirety by the Department of Health and Children. The agency is a planning and co-ordinating body established to formulate and implement a strategy to address the issue of crisis pregnancy through a reduction in the number of crisis pregnancies by the provision of education, advice and contraceptive services, a reduction in the number of women with crisis pregnancies who opt for abortion by offering services and supports which make other options more attractive and the provision of counselling and medical services after crisis pregnancy.

The first strategy to address the issue of crisis pregnancy was officially launched in November 2003 and provides a framework for understanding the causes and consequences of crisis pregnancy and a clear set of actions to address the complex and interacting factors that contribute to the experience of a crisis pregnancy. The agency works on an ongoing basis with statutory and non-statutory agencies to ensure successful implementation of the strategy.

The Crisis Pregnancy Agency is committed to the use of research as a basis for understanding behaviour, assessing need, building on previous practice and promoting the use of evidence-based practice. The goal of the agency's research programme is to foster greater understanding of the contributory factors and solutions to sexual risk taking and crisis pregnancy at individual, community, policy and social level.

Through the national AIDS strategy committee and the structures in place to implement the recommendations of the AIDS strategy, more than €6 million additional annual funding has been provided to health services since 1997. This has been used to address the treatment of HIV-AIDS and other STIs and to develop, deliver and expand initiatives, in partnership with NGOs, for vulnerable groups, such as sex workers, drug users, and those from migrant populations who come from high endemic areas for HIV as well as homosexual men.

At present there are seven consultants specialising in the treatment of HIV-AIDS and STIs, five of whom are in Dublin and one of whom deals with children. In addition, routine antenatal testing was introduced in 1999 and is effective in identifying women who are HIV positive at an early stage in pregnancy which allows for treatment to greatly reduce the perinatal transmission rate.

In recent years with the growth in demand for services and significantly increased government investment, all of the key national players from the statutory and non-statutory sector have come together under the guidance of the Department and the Crisis Pregnancy Agency to plan a common way forward. This has resulted in the first ever national survey of sexual knowledge, attitudes and behaviours in Ireland. This study is now in its final stages and has been carried out in line with those in other European countries. The research is being carried out by a consortium from the Economic and Social Research Institute, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Trinity College and an independent research consultant.

The aim of the research is the collection of reliable nationally representative baseline information. The key issues on which the research will focus include social and demographic characteristics, risk reduction practices, adverse and positive outcomes and the degree of knowledge and learning about sex. The first of four reports detailing the research findings will be published in September of this year. It is intended that the findings will inform all future sexual health policy and practice developments.

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