Health Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-09
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Mary Butler (FF), Waterford

I thank Deputy Moynihan for raising this really important issue of eye care services in line with emerging trends. I am taking this on behalf of the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill.
There are measures either in place or being progressed to address the emerging trends in eye care services, such as those due to an ageing demographic or an increase in the prevalence of myopia. The Health Service Executive provides optical services free of charge to children referred from child health and school health service examinations who are discovered to have sight problems. These children are referred to the appropriate service for treatment. Under the community ophthalmic services scheme, COSS, medical card holders and their dependants aged over 12 can be seen by ophthalmologists, optometrists or dispensing opticians. They can receive an eye examination and be provided with prescribed optical appliances in accordance with a national schedule of approved optical appliances.
In 2017, the HSE published two important documents, the Primary Care Eye Services Review Group Report and the national clinical programme for ophthalmology. The review report set out how a significant proportion of eye services could be delivered in a primary care setting. A key recommendation was that children aged between eight and 12 with routine eye care needs should be transferred to the care of local optometrists. These would receive an annual eye exam under the COSS, irrespective of their medical card eligibility. This remains a priority and work is ongoing to implement this recommendation.
The clinical programme set out a model of care regarding how the realignment of eye services from an acute hospital setting to the community would be undertaken. The HSE has been developing multidisciplinary integrated eye care teams in accordance with this model of care. These teams facilitate assessment, diagnoses, management and treatment, enabling most patients to be seen in their own locality. Where necessary, patients can be referred onwards to acute ophthalmology services to receive the necessary specialist input.
Significant investment has been made in developing and strengthening these integrated eye care teams. There are ten across the six health regions. These teams are also facilitating the large-scale transfer of care from hospital outpatient departments to community settings, with a substantial proportion of referrals assessed, treated and discharged outside the acute system. This has reduced pressure on hospital ophthalmology clinics, enabling acute services to prioritise complex, surgical and high-risk patients, and has improved patient experience through earlier assessment, shorter waiting times and care delivered closer to home.
Work is also under way to ensure Ireland has enough trained eye care professionals to deal with increasing demand: The South East Technological University, SETU, is progressing work to establish a bachelor of science honours degree in optometry, with a first intake of students expected in September 2027. I have been working closely with Professor John Nolan and Dr. Fraser Horn, who have done phenomenal work in the last couple of years to embed this into the new technological university.
They were very supportive of this "one health" approach. You have to have the eye care professionals in place to deliver an awful lot of the services.
I am really struck by what the Deputy said as well about optometrists being able to take that step in regard to dealing with children especially. We have seen how the Minister and the previous Minister have moved in relation to pharmacists now being able to prescribe up to 12 different medications, which is really important.
The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment also recently announced that the ophthalmic optician is now an eligible occupation for the critical skills employment permit. Finally, the Department is also considering ways to expend the scope of practice for optometrists to ensure that the eye care needs of people, especially children and older persons, can be met.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-09