Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I fully agree. The shining example in Ireland is the late Laura Brennan and her advocacy on the human papillomavirus, HPV, vaccine. We know Ireland was doing well on the HPV vaccine and then, as the Deputy referenced, a lot of misinformation came into Ireland from abroad through social media. That scared young women and we saw the level of vaccine drop very considerably. Laura Brennan's advocacy was quite extraordinary. We saw the level of uptake of the HPV vaccine go right back up again and we now have a very high level of uptake. Through her work, an awful lot of lives have saved.

Furthermore, the work of her family with the Laura Brennan catch-up programme for girls and young women who might have missed the original HPV vaccine campaign due to misinformation will also save a lot of lives. We need to learn from extraordinary people like Laura and her family in respect of what the Deputy has said about everyone taking the vaccines that are clinically appropriate for them.

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