Lorraine Clifford Lee (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming in today to take this Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister for Health. I understand that an emergency meeting of the Cabinet is taking place due to Brexit so I appreciate that the Minister for Health could not be here.I want to raise the issue of VARIVAX. It is a vaccine for chickenpox and is not part of the national childhood immunisation programme at present. The Minister should make efforts to include it in the national vaccination programme for children. As I said, it is not part of the immunisation programme, although many parents are paying privately for this vaccine for their children. It is administered in two doses and is very effective in children under the age of 13. It can be given from the age of one year. As I said, many parents are paying for this privately, but this means that children whose parents cannot afford to pay for it privately are being left at risk.

There are many risks associated with chickenpox such as pneumonia, meningitis and, in later life, shingles, all of which can be very dangerous in themselves. It is part of the vaccination programme in many countries, such as the United States of America. Since its introduction into the national programme of that country 15 years ago, hospital admissions and deaths due to chickenpox have dropped by 80%. That is very significant. There is a reason parents here in Ireland are taking up this vaccination if they can pay for it privately themselves. It saves an awful lot of upset and discomfort for the children themselves and prevents parents having to take two or three weeks off work when a child has to stay out of childcare. There are also very serious risks associated with the disease, as I have outlined.

Children who cannot afford this are not getting it and that is not acceptable in this day and age. I understand that it is an expensive vaccination for children to get, but if it were included in the national vaccination programme, the cost for the State would come down dramatically. I would also suggest that the costs imposed on other areas of the health service would reduce dramatically in line with it because many parents of young children end up going into accident and emergency departments with their children or attending their GPs on several occasions. The saving would therefore outweigh the cost of the vaccination. I would like the Minister of State to consider this seriously and, perhaps, to give an indication today of starting a pilot project in this regard or of including it in the overall national immunisation programme.