Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I attended a wonderful event on Monday evening in the village of Rhode in County Offaly. I estimate that approximately 100 women from the local area gathered to hear from Edenderry woman Mary McHugh, also known as "Mary Menopause", who has been telling her story to anyone who will listen about her menopause, which hit her prematurely approximately ten years ago. She described menopause powerfully as depleting women of all the hormones that made us natural. She went on to describe the debilitating symptoms that she had experienced for years without treatment. There was an outpouring of support and similar stories from the other women in the room, each with her own account of the difficulties associated with menopause, from the headaches and aches and pains to the low mood and anxiety, from the loss of libido to hot flushes and night sweats, and from the brain fog to the heavy irregular periods, all of which make life pretty unbearable. For some of the women, these difficulties lasted for more than a decade. That is no way to live. Women have stopped working because of menopause symptoms. Women in their 40s have had their working lives cut short. Menopause affects 50% of our population, yet many are suffering in silence.

Many of my senatorial colleagues have addressed the need for a better and more holistic approach to menopause care. There have been calls on the HSE to implement a public awareness campaign for women who are in the dark about the changes through which their bodies will go. While December marked an important milestone for menopause care with the opening of the first of four publicly funded specialist menopause clinics, we need the rest rolled out as quickly as possible. Access to specialised advice and proper treatment is essential. Women need to know that they are not alone. This is why everyone in the room last Monday was grateful to Mary McHugh for her courage and her relentless determination to rectify this situation. She is a true champion, and I thank her.

Heavy irregular periods can affect women throughout their lives, but particularly during menopause. If a woman is caught out, she loses and her period wins. It is as simple as that. That is why access to period products is crucial. The Government rolled out a period poverty pilot programme this year, which will make available a range of free period products in nine colleges across six education and training boards. Twenty-six local authorities have partnered with the Department of Health to deliver period poverty mitigation measures this year. Offaly County Council has launched an initiative on period poverty following a motion last year by Councillor Clare Claffey, the council's sole female councillor. I want to see period products rolled out in all public buildings, something that I will be pushing my Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to do. Female farmers can find themselves caught out too.

A Fórsa survey found that 70% of women had taken time off work because of their periods. As such, the argument for menstrual- and menopause-friendly policies in the workplace is a strong one. Recently, Spain became the first European country to consider a legal right to menstrual leave. The facts are clear. In the 21st century, it is time that menstruation and menopause came out of the dark and we put in place proper measures that deal effectively with the challenges they bring and give women their lives back.