Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Thank you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I appreciate your flexibility on this.

I was made aware of the issue raised by Deputy Ó Murchú yesterday. A policy measure has been proposed in terms of supports for people who have had mastectomies. The proposal emanating from the HSE was that in some areas, supports would increase but in some areas, supports would decrease. I am not allowing that to happen. I know there was a programme on it today. Those involved were told well ahead of the programme that I would not be allowing this to happen but, unfortunately, they did not lead with that.

Therefore, a lot of people are quite worried right now.

I want to give a clear commitment that while I absolutely will support an increase in supports, I will not be signing off on any policy that decreases supports for anyone in the country. I am pretty annoyed that someone thought that they could announce this and go ahead with it. I have already intervened and told the HSE we will not be proceeding.

We will increase supports. We absolutely will not reduce supports. I thank the Deputy for raising it and thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for her flexibility on that.

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