Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I join fellow Senators in expressing condolences to those who lost loved ones in Nevada. I performed in the Mandalay Bay hotel many times with the Wolfe Tones and the Irish bar there became a home away from home for me while on the road in the United States.

I spoke last week about my hope for a national AIDS memorial. Citizens mobilised today outside the Four Courts to demand access to HIV prevention and a measure called pre-exposure prophylaxis, PrEP.When taken daily, PrEP can stop transmission of HIV, with an effective prevention rate of almost 100%. Senators may be surprised to learn that condom use among men who have sex with men only has a 70% effective rate in preventing HIV transmission.

One of the priority actions identified under the sexual health strategy 2015 to 2020, which we are more than halfway through, was to prioritise, develop and implement guidance to support clinical decision making for sexually transmitted infection, STI, testing, screening and treatment and on the appropriate use of antiretroviral therapy in HIV prevention. However, between 2014 and 2016 rates of HIV infection increased by 36% from almost 400 to more than 500. PrEP is currently undergoing the necessary review processes by the Health Service Executive and it results will not be returned or a determination made in the matter for between six and 12 months.

A large proportion of men who have sex with men take PrEP and imported generic versions of the drug to stay safe. The HSE does not provide clinical support or information and no alternative contraceptive is available that is as effective in preventing HIV. Customs and Excise are starting to seize generic versions of the product. I ask the Deputy Leader to request the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, to come to the House because his silence on increasing HIV rates is troubling.