Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 July 2022
1977. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Health the estimated full-year cost of providing free contraception for all women and girls over the age of 11 years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41517/22]
View answerThe Programme for Government, 2020 commits to providing free contraception for women, starting with the 17-25 age cohort. My Department 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 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 legal framework for the scheme will be provided by the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) (No. 2) Act, 2022, which was passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas on 12th July, 2022 and signed into law by the President of Ireland on 18th July, 2022. It is envisaged that the Act will be commenced, and the scheme launched, in late August or early September, 2022, once the final details of service provision have been agreed and implemented.
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 by officials in the Department’s Press and Communications Team, the HSE’s Communications team and relevant subject matter experts.
In terms of considering the expansion of the scheme to wider age cohorts, it is recommended by the Public Expenditure Code that policy changes with significant Exchequer cost implications should be phased in and/or be subject to piloting and formal evaluation, before full roll out. This is particularly pertinent in the case of schemes, such as this one, which are demand-led.
Full year costings for 17-25 year-olds may be considered in the context of Estimates 2023, but no costings have been finalised to date; funding allocations for future years, including 2023, will be agreed as part of standard pre-Budget processes. The full year cost of provision for 17-25 year-olds is estimated at €26m. Estimated costings for wider age ranges have been included in the Report of the Working Group on Access to Contraception, which is available on the Department’s website.
The Act contains provisions that the eligible age cohort may be changed by the Minister for Health, subject to the agreement of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, by Regulation.
In relation to extending the age cohort specifically to girls under the age of 17, it is important to note that the Act provides that such an extension cannot be completed under regulations, meaning such an extension of the scheme would require a legislative amendment to be brought before the Oireachtas. I gave a commitment in both Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann that inclusion of younger age cohort would be considered by my Department, subject to Government approval, as soon as the Act has been commenced and the initial phase of the scheme launched.
