Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Earlier, in defending our public service media, the Minister cited the fact that we live in a world full of misinformation, fallacies and conspiracy theories. In Europe right now, we have been experiencing a deeply disturbing, 45-fold increase in measles cases in the last couple of years, and we had 42,000 people infected in 2023 compared to 941 in 2022. A lot of that rise can be attributed to a dam-burst of misinformation about the MMR vaccine. The UK is undergoing what it is describing as a national incident and it has lost its measles-free status. Here in Ireland, there are concerns that we could also lose ours. Our vaccination rates stand at some 87% when they need to be at 95%. The UK is about to embark on a major public information campaign and we in Ireland urgently need to do the same.

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