Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There is nothing more frightening than watching someone gasping for their breath. Despite the fact that we live on a windswept island off the west coast of Europe, every day four people die in Ireland due to poor air quality. Two of the key underlying statistics when it comes to these threats are, first, that one in five children in Ireland has asthma and, second, that one in 13 adults has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, which is the disease that makes it hard to move air and in and out of the lungs. While so much can be done to manage COPD, just one in 45 adults in Ireland has been diagnosed with the condition. The vast majority of people are only diagnosed when they present with a medical emergency. That is why Ireland has the highest hospital admission rates in the developed world for COPD at twice the OECD average. This is conservatively costing our health service €120 million each year in hospital admissions alone.

As I said, so much can be done to manage COPD. One of the most innovative initiatives in the world is the warmth and well-being pilot scheme, which I launched as Minister in 2016. The pilot aimed to improve the health and well-bring outcomes of people in Dublin suffering from chronic respiratory disease through a home energy efficiency retrofit by making homes warming and more energy-efficient. Last week, Deputies and Senators were presented with the results of the pilot scheme, which were independently analysed by academic researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The empirical evidence shows that, among other things, there was a reduced usage of GP, emergency department and hospital services and a reduced volume of prescribed drugs - a win for our climate, a win for our health services and, most important, a win for people with chronic conditions, such as asthma and COPD. Yet there is no targeted investment in retrofitting these homes, and the better energy warmer homes scheme for those in fuel poverty has a waiting list of nearly three years. When is the Government going to properly manage chronic illnesses, such as COPD and asthma, and when will it properly support globally significant, innovative pilots, such as the warmth and well-being scheme, to address poor health outcomes in a comprehensive way?

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