Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 28 October 2004
67 Ms O’Sullivan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children if she intends to respond to the call from the director of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency that contraceptive services be made available free of charge in order to reduce the number of crisis pregnancies; if, in particular, she has plans to provide for the wider availability of the morning-after pill; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26321/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Crisis Pregnancy Agency, CPA, published a piece of research, entitled Contraception Needs: The Evidence, A Literature Review. The research, and not the CPA, recommended that some consideration be given to making contraceptive services available free of charge, and to deregulating emergency contraception in order to increase access to women in rural areas.
The director of the CPA has advised my Department that the recommendations in this research will be considered by the agency in the first instance, as part of the development of an overall framework for contraceptive services due to be completed next year.
Each health board is obliged to ensure that an equitable, accessible and comprehensive family planning service is provided in its area. The Department issued guidelines to the health boards in 1995 on the provision of family planning services to all persons in their area who need such services; these services are provided primarily through general practitioners, non-governmental organisations and, to some extent, maternity hospitals-units. Significant additional funding, €5.73 million, was provided for the development of family planning and pregnancy counselling services between 1999 and 2002.
The Deputy will be aware that the question of licensing any medicinal product, along with the conditions attached to any such product placed on the market and made available to the public, are matters for the Irish Medicines Board, IMB, in the first instance. The IMB is obliged to review all the evidence on the quality, safety and efficacy of the product concerned when examining an application for a product authorisation; the question of the legal classification appropriate to the product would also be considered.
