An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-17
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Paraic Brady (FG), Agricultural Panel

Today I rise to address a deeply worrying matter. We have all heard of the Covid pandemic but unfortunately, in the last number of years, we hear of sepsis being diagnosed in hospitals all over Ireland and all over the world. It is not just an Irish problem but a world issue. To give some figures, 20 million people died of sepsis worldwide last year. For anyone who does not understand sepsis, it is failure of all the organs at the one time. We have seen that the pharmaceutical industry has not put resources into finding a cure, medicine or vaccine for this. In most cases, as I learned this morning, early intervention and detection means that sepsis can be cured at a very early stage, but for every hour people lose, they lose 7% of their fight. I would like to clarify a few things. In most cases, an antibiotic cures sepsis. It seems that the first dose of antibiotics treats it in most hospitals and the second course does not actually affect sepsis.
It has flu-like symptoms, such as fever, nausea and a high temperature. I would like an update from the Minister for Health, Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, and something from the World Health Organization and maybe even our EU counterparts. It seems France has led the way in seeing this as problematic, as has the Netherlands, but any other EU country has not touched on it yet. I would like the Minister to address the House and give us an update on Ireland's stance on this as we go into the Presidency. Maybe it is something Ireland could lead on in the European Union.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:38+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-17