Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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929. To ask the Minister for Health if he will ensure that community pharmacies are part of the free contraception scheme, in order to ensure wide access, particularly given the pressure on general practices and delays in obtaining appointments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34555/22]

Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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The Programme for Government, 2020 commits to providing free contraception for women, starting with the 17-25 age cohort.  My Department's Contraception Implementation Group was convened in July, 2021 and has been working with partners, including the HSE, towards ensuring that the scheme will commence in Q3, 2022. Funding of approximately €9m has been allocated for this in Budget 2022.

The scheme will provide for:

- The cost of prescription contraception;

- The cost of necessary consultations with medical professionals to discuss suitable contraception for individual patients and to enable prescription of same;

- The cost of fitting and/or removal of various types of long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs) plus any necessary checks, by medical professionals certified to fit/remove same;

- The cost of training and certifying additional medical professionals to fit and remove LARCs;

- The cost of providing the wide range of contraceptive options currently available to GMS (medical) card holders, which will also be available through this scheme, including contraceptive injections, implants, IUS and IUDs (coils), the contraceptive patch and ring, and various forms of oral contraceptive pill, including emergency contraception.

- The scheme will be open to all 17-25 year-olds ordinarily resident in Ireland. 

Formal consultations with medical representative bodies with regard to service provision under the scheme have commenced and are ongoing. The design of citizen engagement information and publicity campaigns to support and promote the roll out of the scheme will be finalised in the coming weeks, to be launched in the month preceding and during the initial phase of scheme roll-out.

Consultations with representative bodies for the pharmacy sector will commence shortly. It is envisaged that these discussions will concern service provision for the scheme. It should be noted that the regulatory framework in Ireland does not currently permit dispensing the Pill without a prescription; amending this would require expert clinical input. It is not envisaged that this could be considered prior to the launch of the scheme, given the tight timelines involved.

However, scheme implementation will be subject to monitoring and evaluation, following launch, and prior to any widening of age cohorts. It is envisaged that stakeholder engagement will be undertaken, including the pharmacy sector