Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will first address the cost. The HSE wrote directly to Deputy Leddin, whom I asked to raise a parliamentary question about the costing, and told him that purchasing it would cost between €20,000 and €230,000, including VAT. What price a woman’s health? It is such a small amount of money. We know that women have lost faith in the health service, particularly cancer services, and we have a history of letting them down. This is a small action that could be taken to restore women’s faith to some extent.

When going through the research, I was stunned by how, in an important study in 2001, alopecia was cited as the most disturbing side-effect by 58% of women preparing for chemotherapy. Shockingly, 8% were at risk of avoiding treatment altogether purely on that basis. We sometimes discuss these matters as though they just come down to how people feel when they are going through something and that feeling that way while undergoing cancer treatment is natural, but some people are making the decision not to go ahead with their treatment on this basis. People are suffering unnecessarily when we could provide them with something that is tiny in terms of the State’s overall budget. I anticipate that a greater capital allocation will be available towards the end of next year, so I have to get in early. I ask the Minister to find the money for this. With respect, it is his role to roll out these national plans. It is not necessarily the responsibility of individual hospitals. We have to consider this matter from the point of view of equality.

I thank Senators. Everyone across the three Government parties has an expectation that this need will be fulfilled successfully and the Minister was enthusiastic about it when he saw the motion, so I am hopeful. The budgetary process was not easy for the Minister.

Senator Warfield did not seem to do any research whatsoever on this important issue. The Library and Research Service saw that this motion was upcoming and sent all Senators information saying, for example, what was happening in the North of Ireland. There was an opportunity here to avoid just taking shots at the Government and to instead speak about the importance of women’s healthcare in this country.