Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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496. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality further to Parliamentary Question No. 132 of 2 May 2017, the reason the Prison Service does not collect aggregate, anonymised data on the number of pregnant women in prison each year and the steps he will take to ensure that such data collection takes place. [35550/17]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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It is the policy of the Irish Prison Service that prisoners be provided with healthcare services which are equivalent to those made available to citizens in the general community, including maternity care services.

The Irish Prison Service has advised that the delivery of healthcare services to all persons in custody is on an individual patient basis. In that context, the IPS healthcare teams record all relevant medical information, in relation to individual patients, on the Prisoner Healthcare Management System [PHMS]. This system provides a systematic, multi-disciplinary approach to managing an individual’s healthcare from committal to release.

All relevant medical information, including the results of pregnancy tests, is recorded and acted upon from a clinical perspective. Details of pregnancy are recorded within nursing notes on the individual personal record rather than under a particular tab or category within PHMS and as such are accessed as part of the individual's complete healthcare record.

The Irish Prison Service has confirmed that it does not record data in the format requested on the aggregate number of pregnant women in prison each year owing to the requirement that it maintain the confidentiality of the medical records of the persons in its custody.