John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this matter on behalf of the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris. I commend Senator Noone on the wonderful work she did as Chair of the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, where her direction was incisive and very progressive.

As I am sure the Senator is aware, the issue of access to contraception has been the subject of particular attention in recent months following on from the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly to improve women’s access to reproductive health services and the recommendation of Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution to introduce a scheme to provide “the most effective method of contraception, free of charge and having regard to personal circumstances, to all people who wish to avail of them within the State.” Following on from these recommendations, the Minister, Deputy Harris, established a working group within the Department of Health to examine the range of policy, regulatory and legislative issues arising in regard to improving access to contraception. The group has been working since 30 April and launched a public consultation earlier this week. The Minister would encourage everyone to have their say in what will be a fundamental policy change. It is intended that this group will report back to the Minister at the end of September with recommendations on policy options and next steps.

More generally, the HSE sexual health and crisis pregnancy programme has responsibility for the implementation of the national sexual health strategy 2015-20. The programme is supportive of initiatives that facilitate access to contraception for women, including long acting reversible contraception, LARC, such as intra-uterine devices, subdermal implants and so on. The high efficacy rates associated with LARC in preventing crisis pregnancies are well-recognised. Crucially, there is no potential for user error with LARC, which makes it more effective than other methods of contraception, given that many crisis pregnancies occur due to failure of the contraceptive method or incorrect use on the part of some people.

With regard to use of LARC among women in Ireland, the last Irish contraception and crisis pregnancy study suggested that uptake is at a low level but increasing across all age groups. This study found that the proportion of women aged between 18 and 45 using LARC rose from 5.7% in 2003 to 10.9% in 2010, although I do not know the statistics after that date. We know there are barriers to accessing contraception, and cost certainly appears to be an issue for some women in regard to LARC. Data suggest that among women who had considered using LARC, 27% said the costs associated with this type of contraception prevented them from choosing this method. However, we must also remember that hormonal LARC devices are provided free of charge to those with medical cards, which is an important measure in terms of addressing access to contraception. It is also important to acknowledge there can be other barriers to contraception aside from cost, such as difficulty accessing services in a particular locality or feelings of embarrassment.For example, in the United Kingdom, where contraceptive services and supplies are free of charge, a high proportion of pregnancies are still deemed unwanted or unintended. These are fair statistics. Clearly, this is a complex area and the working group has been established to inform the development of the most appropriate policy response. That is reasonable. The group will forward to the Minister whatever it sees as the most appropriate response.