Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would like to join the Deputy in welcoming the significant package for women's health contained in the budget, which includes real funding to implement the national maternity strategy. That is a strategy I was privileged to be part of drawing up when I was Minister for Health.

A new scheme providing free contraception to women aged 17 to 25 will be set up next year. It is a start and we will get it going. We may be able to extend it to women above 25 in future years but as is always the case with a scheme like this, it needs to be phased in and done right. The legislation on safe access zones is still promised and it is in the Minister's work plan. I do not have a date for it coming to the Cabinet yet but it is intended to be done and we can examine the possibility of containing some rules around advertising within that legislation. We ban advertising for tobacco, alcohol and so on in certain zones so perhaps we can do the same with this.

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