Will the Taoiseach lend his support and the support of his office to the effort to roll out peanut oral immunotherapy for children in this country? Approximately 20,000 children in this country suffer from peanut allergies. As the Taoiseach knows, it can become very serious. Some children can have anaphylactic reactions to peanuts. A lot of work is being done on this by Children's Health Ireland, CHI, in conjunction with Cork University Hospital. A drug has been developed but there is no timeline for rolling out peanut oral immunotherapy. This is something that would be very welcome. Will the Taoiseach follow up on the matter? A business case has been escalated to the HSE by CHI. The National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics is reviewing a drug from the company Aimmune Therapeutics. It needs a push. It is something that could be the difference between life and death for a child.

I thank Deputy Griffin for raising this issue. Peanut allergies are serious and in some cases are fatal. We have had a number of cases in recent years of people going into anaphylactic shock and, unfortunately, dying as a consequence of peanut allergies. I am not familiar with the new medicine or the particular business case Deputy Griffin has mentioned, but I will get my office to follow it up with CHI and the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, to see what we can do to push things forward.