Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 3, between lines 10 and 11, to insert the following:

“PART 1

PRELIMINARY AND GENERAL

Short title, collective citations, construction and commencement

1. (1) This Act may be cited as the Health Insurance (Amendment) and Health (Provision of Menopause Products) Act 2024.

(2) The Health Acts 1947 to 2022 and Part 2 (other than section 5) may be cited together as the Health Acts 1947 to 2024.

(3) The Health Insurance Acts 1994 to 2023 and Part 3 (other than section 9) may be cited together as the Health Insurance Acts 1994 to 2024 and shall be construed together as one.

(4) Sections 2 to 5 shall come into operation on such day or days as the Minister for Health may by order or orders appoint either generally or with reference to any particular purpose or provision and different days may be so appointed for different purposes or different provisions.

(5) Sections 7 and 8 shall come into operation on 1 April 2025.

(6) Section 9 shall come into operation on 1 January 2025.”.

With the agreement of colleagues, I will try to answer some of the important questions raised. It is slightly off the subject of amendment No. 1 but with the agreement of the House I will return to the amendments.

Deputy Cullinane asked when it will come into effect. The plan is that HRT will be provided for free from January.

The Deputy asked if it will apply to everybody. The answer is "Yes". I took a decision in rolling this out. There was €20 million, which is a lot of money. There were two ways we could have gone about it. We could have done it the way we did free contraception, which was to fund all care, including GP consultations, but it would have to be limited on some grounds, be it age or something else. Alternatively, we could make it available to everybody and provide the medicines, patches and devices for free but, for now, those without a GP card would pay their own GP costs. We recognise pharmacists will have to apply some charge because there is no margin for them from selling the product. The decision I took was the latter, to make it available to everybody. I would like to see the scheme expanded in the same way we have done with end-to-end cover for free contraception but I felt the better way to do this was for everybody.

To Deputy Cullinane's question as to whether there is an age limit, there is none at all.

The Healy-Raes are gone so I will address their points when they come back.

Deputy Shortall asked about the perinatal mother and baby unit. I thank her for the question. It is essential and the plan is that it will go into St. Vincent's and be fully integrated with the new national maternity centre. Feasibility work is going on. There was a meeting with the regional executive officer last week. The plan is the feasibility study will be back in this quarter. It is very much live.

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