James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

The Minister of State has not really answered the question. The group has met and the report is completed, yet nothing is happening. Is the Minister aware that diabetic eye disease is present in up to 50% of persons with type two diabetes by the time they present for diagnosis?

Did the Minister see the "Prime Time" programme during the week which detailed how a young girl has lost one eye as a consequence of diabetes? The lack of screening of diabetes in this country — it is estimated to affect 250,000 people, 100,000 of whom do not know they have it — costs the State a fortune in terms of complications that arise because of a lack of action that would prevent complications of eye, renal and cardiac disease.

If there was ever a case for preventing an illness or detecting it early, this is it. The Minister will be aware I called for a national body test in the past but there was no mention in the programme for Government of age-appropriate annual check-ups. Nothing has happened.

Now we have another report compiled by a group of experts making recommendations but nothing has happened and it is being left on the shelf. The funding which was there previously, put up by a drug company in Beaumont to initiate an excellent outpatient operation in conjunction with GP service, was withdrawn and the State would not take it over. Will the Minister confirm when the expert advisory group's report that was completed in 2007 will be published and its recommendations implemented? I am more interested in when its recommendations will be implemented than when it will be published.

Can the Minister explain why the mobile retinopathy screening service in the north west has not been expanded, despite the fact that funding was set aside for its expansion in 2007 and 2008? I cannot let this matter pass. Additional money — €750,000 — was given this year but it still has not been used.

I wish to raise the issue of the allocation of funds for specific policy objectives that are highjacked by the HSE for its own ends. This matter is important because it is the key to how things stand and it was not addressed by the Minister earlier — it got the Taoiseach so exercised recently that he threatened to silence the Opposition. Will the Minister address this?

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