Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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442. To ask the Minister for Health the cost of broadening the scheme for women living abroad who suffered in the Magdalen laundries, who are now entitled to free general practitioner services, prescribed drugs, surgical appliances, nursing and home help services, dental, ophthalmic and aural services, counselling, chiropody and physiotherapy, upon their return to Ireland, to include all returning Irish emigrants over 65 years of age. [46013/15]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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The Redress for Women Resident in Certain Institutions Act 2015, inter alia, provided for a range of primary and community health services to be made available without charge from 1^stJuly 2015 to a woman who was resident in a specified institution and who has accepted a formal offer made to her by the Minister for Justice and Equality under the ex-gratia payments scheme.

Only participants in the scheme who reside outside Ireland are entitled to access the specified primary and community health services under the Act if they visit or return to Ireland. There is no basis for providing similar access to non-scheme participants. It is not possible to attempt a costing in respect of an extension of the terms of the Act to a wider group within the population without a detailed understanding of the underlying assumptions, for example in relation to the number of persons projected to benefit and the extent to which such persons might qualify on means or age grounds for a number of existing schemes or supports.