Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Order of Business. I thank the Leader for reacting so quickly and timely to organise a debate today on Palestine, Israel and the occupied territories. Many of us in this House will welcome the opportunity to say what we feel and think about the situation.

I commend the Minister for Foreign Affairs on his performance at the meeting of the UN Security Council and his strong comments. It is a shame that the US Administration was not as strong in its response. I condemn utterly the killing of what we know to date as 58 children in these recent attacks. It is appalling and disgusting. We, the international community, should collectively be really worried by the situation and make a strong call to action on all communities across the world.

I wish to again raise the ongoing restrictions at maternity hospitals. We were told last week that there were national guidelines and that partners would be allowed to be present for labour, including induction, for the birth, that there would be visitations afterwards, and that partners would be present for the really important 20-week anomaly scan. We were told that 14 of the 19 maternity units or hospitals were in compliance with national guidelines but my information is that is not correct. Hospitals are taking a very localised view of what labour means when exactly the partner can attend. Fathers and partners are still being left sitting in their cars waiting for a call to come in and mums are in considerable distress because of this situation. It is my information that the Limerick hospital is not providing the 20-week scan to all mums and only provides a scan for at-risk pregnancies, as it determines. It is 2021 and that is unacceptable. Every mother and their baby or babies are entitled to an anomaly scan, which is an essential part of the pregnancy process.

I have seen a letter that Saolta sent to a woman for the University Hospital Galway, where it said that it cannot conduct a full anomaly scan, would limit the appointment to 15 minutes due to social distancing requirements and, therefore, would give a partial anomaly scan. In that case one may as well not give a scan at all. One needs more than 15 minutes to do a scan as anyone who has been through this will testify. Basically, hospitals are fudging the numbers and saying that they conduct anomaly scans for all women when they only give a half-baked scan. They then deny doing so but I have seen it in black in white in a letter that a woman received. I ask that the Leader uses the strength of her office to get an urgent update from the HSE and the Department of Health on the national guidelines, what exactly is meant by "labour" and if we can get a uniform approach across every hospital and unit as to what that means, and not have a localised approach.I must note that five hospitals continue to be completely outside of national guidelines. They are not anywhere near compliant with the guidelines on allowing partners to be present at almost any stage. That must be addressed with urgency.

The final issue that I wish to raise is the ongoing debate around the menopause. It has been a fantastic national conversation. We need to see action. In that regard, I call on the Leader to organise a debate on women's health at the earliest possible opportunity. I ask that we get an update from the Minister on the women's health task force and the work it is doing not just on the menopause, but across all of the women's health issues that we have raised in this House, including fertility, IVF, maternity and endometriosis. There are many issues and we would welcome the opportunity to discuss them.