Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What happened here was that the HSE published national procedures without discussing the issue with me and without proper consultation with the Department. I got a phone call from a fantastic activist who is also a Fianna Fáil councillor, Teresa Costello, asking me what in the name of God I was doing removing supports from women. I said that under no circumstances were any supports being removed from anybody. I said that a review was in place but the purpose of the review is to provide additional supports. We know that women with medical cards have some supports but those supports differ by region and very little is available for women who do not have medical cards.

I was as shocked as anybody else to hear that a policy that most certainly was not agreed had been launched. It was disappointing that information that was incorrect got covered nationally. It caused an awful lot of upset to an awful lot of women and there was no need for it. We clarified very quickly that this was not a policy and was certainly not something that was going to be authorised.

What I did on the back of that was ask the HSE to go back to the drawing board. I told it that under no circumstances was I authorising a policy that took away any existing supports. I want a policy that levels up and that considers women who do not have medical cards as well. Those options are being finalised and costed. Obviously, I will need to find money for them but then I will be reviewing them.

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