Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The point made by Deputy Coppinger is a good one. I can argue, technically, as to whether this should be debated as part of this legislation, but Deputy Donnelly putting these amendments down is important. All of us here are concerned, as Deputy Donnelly correctly said, about reducing crisis pregnancies. Commitments, or certainly, recommendations were given in the all-party committee report on the eighth amendment in respect of ancillary recommendations. I hate the word "ancillary" because it somehow or other seems to suggest they were afterthoughts. They were not. They were fundamental to the deliberations of the committee.

All of us who campaigned for a "Yes" vote stated we were going to legalise termination but we were also going to put other supports in place. I have heard my own position misrepresented on this and I want to be clear. I want to see free contraception in this country. Free contraception for women is going to require changing primary legislation. It is also going to require some clinical advice and guidance for the reasons Deputy Donnelly gave. There are different types of contraception. At the moment, many women, probably over 40%, have access to free contraception through the general medical services, GMS, scheme. Unlike men, women require a visit to their GP, generally, to be prescribed contraception so it is governed under the GMS scheme. We will, therefore, require primary legislation to be changed and a clinical input as to what is the best thing to do for women. I am committed to doing both of those things in 2019. I am also committed to working with the Joint Committee on Health as perhaps the best forum where we can work on a cross-party basis to try to identify how best to progress that.

The Deputies acknowledged the maternity and infant care scheme does largely provide for free maternity services. We went through this yesterday and I will not go through it again. I will just say that there are free visits to the GP, further examinations during pregnancy, free visits to the maternity unit and if a woman has hypertension or diabetes there are additional visits after the birth of the baby. The GP will examine the baby at two weeks and both the mother and baby at six weeks. Mothers are entitled to free inpatient and outpatient services in hospitals in respect of the pregnancy and birth and are not liable for any of the standard inpatient charges that the rest of us experience as we go about accessing the health service. We also have free GP care for under-sixes as well.

The Deputy is right about some drugs. Cariban was mentioned by my colleague, Deputy O'Connell. She dealt with the issue that it is an unlicensed drug. Legislatively, the Oireachtas gave the power to the Health Service Executive to decide on the reimbursement of drugs and not to the Minister of the day in the Health (Pricing and Supply of Medical Goods) Act 2013. The long and the short of it is that what Deputy Donnelly is trying to do is good. It aligns with what I want to do. I do not think we should put in a report about the broader issues in this legislation but I am happy to give a commitment that I will report to the Joint Committee on Health etc. I would rather not put it in this Bill because I do not think it is a good fit. It is, however, important to highlight it.