Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I fully agree. There is funding in the budget here before us to expand the service.

Up until now, there has been very limited clinical access for women. As the Deputy quite rightly says, there has been limited knowledge in general practice. The GPs have not had the kind of specialist support they need. There have been very limited specialist services available for referral from the GPs. Even if the GP did know what was going on they did not have many options for referring their patients. That is now fundamentally changing. We are funding the ICGP to produce a quick reference guide for GPs and to do training much like has been done for menopause. The quick reference guide for GPs which was launched last year has been really successful. There is now specialist training for GPs. The ICGP has really taken this on board. We funded a women's healthcare post for a fantastic doctor, Dr. McCarthy, who is working with the ICGP on GP training and supports. We now have referral pathways for the GPs into centres around the country for secondary care. We have also set up the highly specialist units as well. I was with the one in Tallaght recently and it was just amazing to see this new team of experts' multidisciplinary approach. They say this is having an enormous impact on women's lives. They have been doing fantastic work. We are rolling out the service and it really is going from strength to strength.