Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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530. To ask the Minister for Health when a list of doctors providing free contraception will be made available by county in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47022/22]

Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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In accordance with Programme for Government and Women’s Health Action Plan commitments to providing free contraception for women, starting with the 17-25 age cohort, I launched the free contraception scheme for women aged 17-25 on Wednesday 14th September. Funding of approximately €9m was allocated for free contraception in Budget 2022.

The scheme is now open to all 17-25 year-old women ordinarily resident in Ireland and provides 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 are also 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 legal framework for the scheme is provided by the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) (No. 2) Act, 2022, which was enacted in July, 2022. The contraception provisions of the Act were commenced on the 14th September, 2022.

Citizen engagement information and publicity campaigns to support and promote the roll out of the scheme were launched, also on the 14th September, by the Department’s Press and Communications Team, the HSE’s Communications team and relevant subject matter experts in the Department and HSE Sexual Health and Crisis Pregnancy Programme.

Digital information regarding the scheme, how to access it and wider information on contraceptive options is available through www.sexualwellbeing.ie; printed contraceptive choices materials will be placed in GP surgeries from later in September.

As the Health Services Executive are updating the www.sexualwellbeing.ie site with the resources to support implementation and as this is a service matter, I have also asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.