Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Tóibín as he was first to speak. In respect of the Navan hospital review, I have not seen it yet so I cannot confirm his perspectives on it as regards his view that it has many shortcomings. I will engage with the Minister for Health on the review. The issues are not simple either. Clinicians on all sides have different perspectives on this in County Meath and elsewhere. We have to ensure that whatever we do is in the best interests of patients in the first instance, and that the best outcomes are achieved in treatment in the right place and at the right time, bearing in mind the severity of a case or of an illness. There is no doubt that hospitals are under great deal of pressure at the moment because of Covid-19, its aftershocks, and what will be a difficult winter with an anticipated flu and waves of Covid-19. I appeal to people to get vaccinated and to get both the Covid-19 vaccine and the flu vaccine. This is vital in the prevention of getting sick yourself but also of reducing pressures. The Government and the Minister will examine the review that has been undertaken and will engage with the stakeholders on it.

Deputy Gould raised the issue of Drinkaware in our schools. It is not appropriate, as I have said, that resources or materials produced or funded by the drinks industry for education and awareness on alcohol are in use in our schools. The drinks industry should not be near our schools in respect of anything to do with addiction generally. The Departments of Education and Health and the HSE will work together to ensure that this message is communicated clearly to schools. Many of the schools were entering into this area in good faith and are anxious to try to help students and young people. I do not believe that there is any deliberate bad practice here in schools, where there trying to do the best they can by their students. Of course, the idea of the social, personal and health education, SPHE, programme when it was introduced was to deal with self-esteem, self-respect and to deal with addiction issues. There is a specific module within SPHE on the use and misuse of a range of substances. The SPHE specifications are currently being redeveloped by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA. The updated curriculum will be developed for primary, junior and senior cycle. It was published for consultation on 18 July which will run until 18 October. Anyone with an interest in the area should contribute to the consultation before the deadline.

The HSE, with the support of the Department of Education and the NCCA, has produced a Healthy Choices resource for junior cycle SPHE, and unit 1 is currently available in the NCCA's online toolkit for SPHE to support teachers in addressing issues of alcohol, tobacco and drug use. The Department and the NCCA will continue to support the HSE in the development of units 2 and 3 of the programme, which are due to be published in 2023.

There are many supports there and materials from Drinkaware or from anywhere else are not needed as resources are already in place and available to schools, and that information will be communicated to them.

There is a Know the Score substance misuse programme published in 2019 for transition and fifth year pupils, which was jointly developed by the HSE, the Department of Education, and the drug and alcohol task forces. Reducing the high levels of harmful patterns of alcohol consumption among young people was one of the primary objectives of the Public Health (Alcohol) Act. We have brought in minimum unit pricing which I am sure the Deputy agrees with.

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