Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Senator has raised valid points and asked pertinent questions, and I will get answers for him. While I do not know the answer on the level of consultation the HSE had with the baby friendly health initiative, I will find that out for the Senator. I will also find out how far the Trinity study went with its consultations and how widespread they were. I appreciate that the answer I read out is not entirely satisfactory, although it does cover the basics, which is that there has been no change in the ratio of breastfeeding in the hospitals that had the initiative running and those that did not. Other than that, it does not give us the answers to the questions the Senator is asking and I undertake to get those answers and revert back to him. I will re-engage with him when I get those answers in order to try to get this back up and running and make sure we achieve what we all want to achieve, which is an increase in breastfeeding rates across the country.