Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)

I have the rest of the written response, which I will go through later. I want to reflect on some of what the Minister of State has said. It is really disappointing that there is no plan to roll out OIT in Ireland. The average cost per year for an allergy sufferer is €1,600; this has been worked out and many people have done research on it. The OIT cost would be €4,000 per year, but it would be finite and would only have to be done for a couple of years. The cost per year would disappear or be significantly reduced, so it makes sense to roll this out.

In relation to training people to use EpiPens, Professor Hourihane, who is one of the four allergists in Ireland, said it would take 20 minutes, so that is the kind of training that would be needed. Another group I met with said this could be done on Zoom with teachers on their Croke Park hours. It is the kind of common-sense stuff that can be done.

There are four allergists in Ireland for a population of 5.3 million. Finland, with a similar population of 5.6 million, has 100 allergists. We are just not prioritising this, although allergies are on the increase. We need to be a lot more proactive in how we deal with this and roll it out.

There is a very good team at CHI but it is very difficult to get access to food challenges, as I know from speaking to parents. When someone is diagnosed with an allergy by a GP, they are referred to that team. The person will then have to do a food challenge, where they are exposed to, say, a bit of a nut in order to see how they get on. It is very hard to get access to those, and people may actually need five or six different challenges, depending on what their allergies are. More joined-up thinking is definitely needed.

The Minister of State is right that it is the start of a campaign. I am disappointed to hear that OIT is not on the agenda. However, we could have more movement on the policy for publicly available EpiPens, from what I am hearing.