Healthcare Policy Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-25 ============================================================ Mary Butler (FF), Waterford I thank Senator Costello for raising the really important issue around providing an update on the establishment of a cross-border scheme for oral immunotherapy treatment for food allergies. I am taking this Commencement matter on behalf of my colleague the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, and I thank the Senator for the opportunity. I was struck by what she said: that she had never really thought about it. We do not really think about it unless we have a person in our family who might be impacted by some type of allergy. More than one in four people in Europe suffer the effects of an allergy at some point in their lives and they are particularly common in children. It is important to note that most allergic reactions are mild and can be kept under control. Severe reactions can occur but these are rare. I was struck by what the Senator said about having to travel abroad. I was coming back on a flight from Portugal recently, having been over there for St. Patrick's Day. The announcement on the flight was that there was a person on the flight with an adverse reaction to peanuts, that there would not be any sold that particular day, and to be careful. When I read the Commencement matter this morning, the two tied in completely. We have to become more aware of other people. You could be sitting beside a person, a complete stranger, and you might do something that would impact them. There could be unintended consequence through no fault of anyone. GPs can help diagnose an allergy and, in the case of a mild allergy, can offer advice and treatment to help manage the condition. They may also refer to a paediatrician or onwards to an allergy specialist as needed for testing and treatment if the allergy is severe or the cause is not known. Children with allergies are seen at a number of regional paediatric services across the country. The allergy team at Children's Health Ireland, CHI, in Dublin runs specialist allergy clinics out of CHI at Crumlin and Temple Street, and also at Connolly Hospital and Tallaght University Hospital. The team deals with allergy prevention and diagnosis, along with treatment for allergic rhinitis and drug, venom and vaccine allergies. The team aims to improve quality of life for children with allergies and their carers to minimise the risk of allergy, promote food allergy prevention and provide Irish healthcare professionals with allergy education resources. Oral immunotherapy is a medical treatment that aims to desensitise the immune system to food allergies, meaning a person is less likely to have a reaction. It does this by gradually exposing a person to small amounts of food under careful supervision, slowly building up the amounts over weeks and months. There is also a responsibility to ensure that medications are stored and administered safely and appropriately. Those with a known risk of anaphylaxis should carefully follow their doctor's guidance regarding carrying an adrenaline pen - or as we know them, an EpiPen - on their person. The State recognises the importance of pharmacies being prepared to administer these medicines safely and effectively. In 2024, pharmacists administered adrenaline in emergency situations on 365 occasions. The community pharmacy agreement in 2025 established an emergency medicine administration preparedness allowance to recognise that community pharmacists are authorised to administer emergency medicines, and that this service is provided on an ad hoc basis requiring pharmacists to be trained and ready to respond. An annual recurring allowance of €525 was made available to community pharmacy contractors, which commenced in January 2026, only two months ago. The HSE operates the EU cross-border directive in Ireland, which plays an important role in facilitating Irish patients to access planned treatment abroad in another EU or EEA country. The EU cross-border directive provides rules for the reimbursement to patients of the costs of treatment abroad, where the patient would be entitled to such treatment in their home member state. It supplements the right that patients already have at EU level. The Senator is telling me the lived experience is not quite that, so I will come back in the next section. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-25/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:46+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-25