Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I was happy to attend an event this morning for International Women's Day with the Deputy's party representative, Deputy Olivia Mitchell, at which the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform officiated. Women in Ireland have made enormous strides over many years — certainly since I became a Member of this House — but clearly there are deficiencies and gaps in many respects. In the health area, in particular, there is a focus on many of the issues that affect women, including cervical screening. There are strategies and a council is in place to deal with specific issues of concern to women. The Minister of State, Deputy Fahey, has responsibility for the issue of violence against women. He recently came to see me with a number of representative organisations in regard to funding and we are examining those matters. I do not have an answer specifically on the strategy but perhaps I can revert to the Deputy on this.

The redress scheme does not require new legislation as legislation is in place to provide for the establishment of redress schemes. To pursue insurers we would need separate legislation. The intention is to have the repayments legislation through the House by the end of May and to start the repayments in June. The HSE has much of the data processing completed in regard to those patients who are alive. The sum of €400 million has been provided in 2006 to allow for repayments to be made from the start of June.

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