Seanad report:MRSA infection, in relation to which there were serious concerns in the country, was connected with the issue of factory farming, particularly of poultry, Mary Henry (Ind) said.
Joining calls for a debate on the prevalence of MRSA, Dr Henry said the bug was not merely due to poor hygiene in hospitals. That just allowed it to spread. "It is due to the overuse and abuse of antibiotics, and it ties in as well with the issue of factory farming, particularly with poultry, because in their feed there are substances called growth promoters.
"These are antibiotics too. They may not be antibiotics which are given to humans, but we have to look at the whole issue in the development not just of resistant staphylococcus aureus but the development of numerous resistant strains to humans and to animals." Any debate on MRSA must be broadened to take account of such matters, stressed Dr Henry.
David Norris (Ind) said he had absolutely no sympathy for the proprietors of the Matthews factory farm in Britain. "These things are concentration camps for animals. They're extremely dangerous. If we lose respect for other creatures on this planet then we will very quickly lose respect for ourselves and for our fellow humans. Avian flu spread like wildfire and the virus is capable of mutating within these horrible places where you have hundreds of thousands of birds stuffed in." His colleague Dr Henry had indicated to him that in some of those places creatures were so overfed that their legs could not keep them up.
Micheal Kitt (FF) said he had given the HSE the names of two products which he believed could be used to tackle MRSA. He was surprised that, over a year later, there had been no response from the health body.
Maurice Hayes (Ind) said there was a need for a wide debate on MRSA, which was a pressing issue. "I think it has to do with cleanliness, with not having a matron figure in hospitals and, I think, with the outsourcing of cleaning."
Camillus Glynn (FF) said he understood that infection control officers should be employed in all our major hospitals. He wondered if this was the case, and, if it was, what was happening.
The agency being established by the Consumer Protection Bill would have no meaningful powers at all, Shane Ross (Ind) said. What was being done was merely the setting up of another quango. The Government was aware that the rise in the cost of living, the scandals in the financial services industry and the cartels which existed in this country were matters of great public anguish, and it was at a loss as to what to do about this. So it was doing what governments always did in such a situation; it was establishing another agency.
"This is just another agency which is going to achieve absolutely nothing," Senator Ross said.