Vol. 517 No. 4
122 Proinsias De Rossa asked the Minister for Health and Children the plans, if any, he has to make family planning services available free of charge to all women as recommended in the Government commissioned report Women and Crisis Pregnancies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9903/00]
Family planning services are available free of charge to medical card holders. I have no plans to extend this arrangement to non-medical card holders.
When the Women and Crisis Pregnancy report was published in 1998, the view of my predecessor, as Minister, was that it would not have been appropriate to publish a major report containing recommendations while the consultation process leading to the preparation of the Green Paper on Abortion was under way. The report as published did not therefore contain recommendations but rather findings and conclusions, based on the research undertaken.
