Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is in respect of the maternity strategy that the Government has published and supported. A key part of that strategy is supporting the expansion of breast-feeding by new mothers. I was both disappointed and shocked at the withdrawal of funding from the baby-friendly health initiative, which is supported by the UN and the World Health Organization, WHO, and which involves going into hospitals and supporting women who have given birth to breast-feed their babies. It was receiving budgetary support from the HSE of €50,000 a year and was a key part of the strategy. I and an awful lot of other people are shocked to find that the HSE has now arbitrarily axed all of the funding to the point at which the initiative, which was internationally supported, has closed down.

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