Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 July 2022
815. Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill asked the Minister for Health the health promotion activities that will be undertaken to promote awareness, understanding and the uptake of the free contraception scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37166/22]
View answerThe Programme for Government, 2020 commits to providing free contraception for women, starting with the 17-25 age cohort. My Department's Contraception Implementation Group, convened in July, 2021, has been working with partners, including the HSE, towards ensuring that the scheme will commence in late August or early September 2022. Funding of approximately €9m has been allocated for this in Budget 2022.The scheme will be open to all 17-25 year-old women ordinarily resident in Ireland and will provide for:
- The cost of prescription contraception;
- The cost of necessary consultations with medical professionals to discuss suitable contraception options with 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.
Formal consultations with medical representative bodies with regard to service provision under the scheme have commenced and are ongoing. The legal framework for the scheme will be provided by the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) (No. 2) Bill, 2022, which was passed by the Dáil on 6th July, 2022 and will be debated by Seanad Éireann on 12th July, 2022.
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 by officials in the Department’s Press and Communications Team, the HSE’s Communications team and relevant subject matter experts. This will build upon the information already available through HSE- led and HSE-funded websites which provide information about sexual heath and wellbeing, including www.sexualwellbeing.ie.
It should be noted that some access to free contraception is already enabled, through the National Condom Distribution Service (NCDS), which was established by the HSE Sexual Health and Crisis Pregnancy Programme (SHCPP) in October 2015.The NCDS functions as a central point for distributing free condoms and lubricant sachets to HSE services and other organisations working with individuals and groups at increased risk of negative sexual health outcomes. The service was extended to 3rd level institutions in late 2019. Third-level institutions can now order condom dispensers from the HSE, which enable the provision of free condoms and sexual health information to students on campuses nationwide.
While oral contraception and various forms of long-acting reversible contraception can be more effective at preventing pregnancy, condoms provide protection against STIs that is not provided by non-barrier forms of contraception. It is envisaged that continued expansion of the NCDS will be facilitated in line with demand, in order to support the STI prevention and sexual health promotion needs of people living in Ireland.
