September is Sepsis Awareness Month so I want to raise sepsis awareness, which I have raised before here. It is a really important issue to raise regularly because it is the biggest killer in Ireland and in the world. More people die from it than from heart attacks, AIDS, lung cancer, breast cancer, Covid and car accidents combined. About 20% of people who contract sepsis die from it. About 20% of those are children, so it affects people of all ages. Even those who do not die experience long-term effects that can reoccur over the years.

I commend the work done by North East Sepsis Awareness, NESA, which is a campaign that was launched roughly a year ago. It has done Trojan work since then to raise awareness about sepsis. It was formed by Hannah Tormey and Caithriona Flanagan, both of whom have experience of sepsis within their families. They have attended events and given talks to different organisations. They have done wonderful work and in fact they are doing the HSE's work for it. The HSE needs to be much more proactive. I acknowledge the action on sepsis five-year strategy was launched last week by the Minister and the HSE. I want to be sure the resources are made available to ensure that strategy is implemented between now and 2030 but a lot more needs to be done on the ground to make people aware of the symptoms of sepsis so they can ask for tests or have it considered. More importantly, medical personnel, especially in our emergency departments, need to be aware and need to be constantly asking could this be sepsis, doing the test to see and then taking action if it is.

It would prevent so many deaths. The work of NESA on its own in the last year has prevented deaths. People have come back to NESA and said that because of its campaign, they knew what the symptoms are and were able to stop someone getting seriously ill. I want to commend NESA. I call on the Minister and the HSE to do a lot more on this issue.