Prep

Yes, the government ought to fully fund PREP. In the long run it's cheaper for the exchequer. It's also the morally correct thing to do, not that politics and morality intersect. We have a gay Taoiseach, a physician who ought to insist that funding be made available once and for all. I'm sure some of you here have met or even know him personally. Instead of filming him kissing a guy in a pub you should buttonhole him and shame him in front of everyone and maybe film that interaction.

Yes, €510 is alot of money. If you have health insurance you can claim some of that back. However needs must and you might have to ditch the daily Starbucks or rein in your alcohol consumption or change your phone data plan.

I grew up in the 80s when guys disappeared. One week they were there, next week they were 6 feet under. I lived in the US and with an attorney pal of mine used to travel about NYC as his pro bono work was to draw up wills for PWAs. I saw every type of guy with every **** opportunistic infection known and unknown to medical science, an absolute nightmare and oftentimes a literal shitshow. The faces and interactions of those men are seared into my memory. Nausea, pain, loneliness, sadness were the companions of these men and their bravery and delight in having visitors and their ability to on occasion to crack jokes and laugh through their illnesses amazed me. I remember a young Irish man, 34, a Donnelly visa recipient, alone in his East Village apartment. His friends cared for him, his family in Kildare here didn't care and didn't want to know about him. He was worried at first when he realised I was Irish but we talked and it was ok. Paul died 6 weeks later.

My point in relating this is that most of you have no understanding of what happened with AIDS. All of these men would have sacrificed everything to swallow a pill to stop the progress of their illness let alone prevent their getting infected. Cop on and budget to pay for a doctor. Get a media campaign going to increase funding. Call Kylie Minogue and ask her to endorse your campaign. Once she's on board Leo will be interested.

Forgive me for being pissed at someone pleading poverty walking about with a €500 phone and attendant price plan. A person in that position needs to consider abstinence, condoms, or forgoing certain privileges-and no,a smartphone is not a necessity- paying for treatment at the moment or being irresponsible or carelessly catching HIV and getting free ARV drugs. Those are the options at the moment.It is pretty difficult to catch HIV-unprotected anal or vaginal sex or via blood. YOu do have to actually work at getting infected.

It's also clear unless you have been offended that I believe free PREP should be available to all and right now please. I have no political axe to grind but fact is Leo Varadkar is head of this government and if he wanted he could do an Reynolds or a Haughey and demand immediate and swift resolution of the problem. Last time I looked I didn't live in North Korea but in democratic Ireland so I'll comment as I see fit. After all previous Taoisigh saw no problem in plunging this country into €80 billion debt over a 12 hour period to save the banks. If this was a priority for out gay leader he would make a couple of million immediately available. Nobody's asking him to build a colony for human habitation on Mars.

He's a public figure and leader of the government. He's also a member of 2 minorities-non-white and gay-so he should understand discrimination and as a physician he should be aware of the consequences of HIV infection. It's time to pull the finger out. I'd like to remember him as someone who did the right thing, a bit like fellow gay Roderic O'Gorman who at least has a humanity and humility. Despite having a visceral hatred of the Greens, I'll acknowledge that O'Gorman is one of the best people in Dail Eireann and I suspect that his humanity is coloured by his being a gay man

Negative feedback? Unsure of what that's about. If it's from people here it's of no import or consequence to me.

I agree with much of what you say, but it's a no brainer. Roll out the clinics and supplement as take up grows. Prevention is better than the cost of treating the condition. There are enough gay politicians to quietly get together and agree that this something to get over the line ASAP. I have a healthy disregard for SPADS and senior civil servants all supping at the tit of the state to feather their own nests and advance their careers.

There's a moral imperative here and today's gay generation don't remember and probably never heard of SILENCE =DEATH

You learn from the Jews and vow never to take **** from anyone again.

I'm not stigmatizing HIV. My partner died of it 27 years ago and that was when HIV was really stigmatized. When we met he was HIV+ but we took precautions and despite the deaths all round had a great intimate relationship.

I call it as I see it. Clearly that plain speaking is unacceptable in a world populated by a veritable blizzard of snowflakes whose closest interaction with HIV is wearing a red ribbon, provided of course it doesn't clash with ones outfit or involve sharing space with infected people.

And I will say it again, free prep for all, but don't divorce it from the reality of what HIV can do.

Currently there is a massive and increasingly dire shortage of basic antibiotics. Everybody needs those. Do you believe that if there is difficulty procuring HIV meds it will take precedence over antibiotics? You must be joking. Despite all the progress, at the end of the day fags are just fags to the majority of people.