Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening complication of infection that can impact anybody. In fact, nearly seven people a day die with sepsis. The Taoiseach will know of the death in my constituency of 15-year-old Seán Hughes from sepsis. His parents have done tremendous work in raising awareness of sepsis and got a commitment from the Minister for Health in the previous Government that similar work would be done by the HSE. Unfortunately and mainly due to Covid-19, only €50,000 has been spent in the past three years on this campaign. Will the Taoiseach write to the HSE and urge it to significantly increase the resources available for sepsis awareness and use tools such as television and radio advertisements, which were used widely during Covid-19, to communicate a really important public health message?

I thank the Deputy for raising what is a very important issue. I certainly will engage with the Minister for Health on this because quite a number of people get very ill and some pass away through not identifying sepsis early on. Sometimes it can be too late when it is identified and this can cause terrible damage and loss of life. It is something that deserves a far greater allocation of resources.