Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. He is entirely correct. The national maternity strategy is clear that it wants to make detailed routine scans available for 100% of women within the public health system. It wants to make them available on the basis of a woman's choice rather than on the basis of specific clinical indications. That is where we need to get to. I think it is right and proper that we start with clinical indications, in the interest of women's health and wellbeing, and that we make sure the scans are available in every hospital group, which is the current situation. The regional hospital in Mullingar is doing an excellent job in that regard and I thank its staff for that.

We will be looking at how we can deploy the extra ultrasonographers we will be hiring in 2018 to best ensure geographic equity. Mullingar will be considered in that context as well. It is estimated that for everybody to have absolutely routine access to such an anomaly scan, we would need an additional 52 ultrasonographers - 35 for anomaly scans and a further 17 for dating scans. It is important to note that the benefit of this planned recruitment will be released incrementally because, let us be very honest, the likelihood of finding all of that cohort in one go is slim. We will be increasing the number of ultrasonographers in 2018. I will talk to the HSE about the point the Deputy makes about Mullingar and the fact that it is very much a regional hospital.

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