Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputies for the work they are doing with and on behalf of women. It is wonderful to see so many different parties and so many different voices, male and female, articulate the female health experience. Every single person knows that it has been overlooked. Every single person knows that experience of telling a story and not being listened to or believed. I completely respect those experiences and I have no interest whatsoever in engaging in politics around something as important and serious as this. What I am interested in is service delivery and the quickest possible way of ameliorating, fixing and making good the sheer lack of service delivery for women's health that has gone on for so long.

There have been important advancements in the last five years. There is an important programme in place now, which is a different way of listening to and respecting women. I cannot make up for previous experience but what I can say is that, as the first female Minister for Health for a long time, I have a very strong commitment to delivering services that are going to make a difference in people's lives. We can deal with the technicalities and politics of an amendment and how that works. Deputies are welcome to make whatever charge they wish against me. I am not here for that. I am here to take steps forward on service delivery, to give some description of what has happened, and to discuss what needs to happen next and how we might deliver that. I have no interest in politics with regard to this. I am only interested in service delivery.

I will, of course, answer the women, whom I thank for coming tonight, on the technical pieces - the motion, the amendment and how they work. However, I am interested, as the first female Minister for Health in a long time, and who, by the way, has also had friends, family and constituents describe to me the pain in their lives and in their bodies that they have lived with for so long as a consequence of endometriosis and, in particular, undiagnosed endometriosis and what that does for their mental health as well. I share all of the stories the women have told. It is so important that they are told on the floor of the Dáil. They are, with every respect to them and they will know this, stories I have also heard already, albeit perhaps from different women but nevertheless on precisely the same experience. I never deliver the speech that is prepared. It is welcome to have it but Deputies know that, as a matter of courtesy, I do not deliver what is prepared.

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