Jennifer Carroll MacNeill
Dún Laoghaire · Fine Gael · Ireland
“It will be provided by a registered pharmacist in accordance with the relevant pharmacy legislation, including this Bill. Section 2 of the Bill makes various amendments to the Irish Medicines Board Act and the Pharmacy Act. Those amendments ensure that whole legislative framework is cross-referenced correctly.”
“We now have a common conditions service where you can go to a pharmacy instead of a GP to get a diagnosis and prescription for eight basic conditions like conjunctivitis or urinary tract infections - the kind of things that just come up in people's lives all the time. We would like to expand more and more what pharmacies can do.”
“In particular, the board will be focusing on aspects of menstrual health, on aspects of postpartum mental health, particularly in traumatic birth cases, on something we have overlooked for some time, which is endometriosis, on women who are finding it difficult to access services in different ways, as Senator Harmon suggested, and on more…”
“The extension to 41- to 45-year-olds could possibly be €5 million to €8 million because there are statistically fewer women in that bracket trying to conceive, so the numbers are higher. It really is a question of funding. I remind Senators that they have also asked me to fund various other programmes.”
“That followed confirmation from the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland and the Health Products Regulatory Authority that the patch and ring are classified as medicinal products, not medical devices. That is just a correction there.”
“That is why we have put so much money into supporting them in different ways, including the conclusion of a €50 million increase to their fees and to provide for the opportunity to raise private funds in this way, for example, the common conditions service. I want to see pharmacists doing more.”
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“Internationally the guidance is that blister packs should be a last resort with patients being supported by many other interventions. Nevertheless, I recognise that they are helpful but they have never been funded by the State. As I said before in this House, there are three groups of patients. I might come back to it because I am out of time.”
“Community pharmacies receive an additional service fee for that service. The State does not fund and never has funded blister packs. There is no change to that service. There has been no removal of that service because that service did not exist funded by the State. It is important to say from a patient safety perspective that while I, as a non-medic, anecdotally perceive blister packs as a patient safety initiative, the evidence that I am getting both from the pharmaceutical regulator and from the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics is that it is not in fact a patient safety initiative and that health outcomes are not in fact changed by blister packs. However, we regard them as convenient and important particularly for elderly people and that is an important part of the consideration.”
“There has been quite a degree of confusion on this and so it is very useful to set out the circumstances of it. As part of the community pharmacy agreement in 2025, all the parties agreed to introduce improved controls for phased dispensing. That would ensure that patients on high-risk medications such as antipsychotics or opioids are appropriately targeted with support for phased dispensing rather than getting everything in one go. It is important that I clarify the difference between phased dispensing and what has become known as blister packs. The State has supported phased dispensing because it is a crucial patient safety initiative with antipsychotics and opioid drugs. The State has supported phased dispensing for medical card holders since 1996 and will continue to do so; there is no change in relation to that.”
“That is why we need to make sure that we are increase our acute and community beds and really utilising fantastic hospitals like Monaghan that have so much capacity, not to do the acute work but to do other very important community-based work – to be able to do infusions and use step-down beds and the really important work it can do working in partnership with Cavan. I want to compliment both hospitals on how much progress they have made this year to serve the people of Cavan and Monaghan.”
“There might be two slightly different issues there. The HSE app is a patient-focused app in the first instance. People can make appointments and see prescriptions. Its functionality is improving over time to be able to book appointments. It is slightly different from the broader shared care record and electronic health record. The shared care record which we are rolling out this year is the technology to be able to see if patients are moving from Cavan to Beaumont that Beaumont can immediately see all their healthcare needs without files needing to be transferred and all of those delays. It is separate to inter-hospital patient flow. That does happen but the delays are largely around space and capacity.”
“Regarding what the Deputy said about the step-down facilities in Monaghan, I would be very glad if she has specific examples that she can give me before Monday because it is precisely those that I will be testing in person with the different regions on Monday in great detail. The better the local examples I have for that the better I can test and push and make sure the efficiency in that flow is there. I would really appreciate the Deputy’s support to me in giving me that local knowledge before Monday.”
“I am very glad to have this timely opportunity to have this discussion with the Deputy. The reason is officials from her region and the three Dublin regions will be in with me on Monday for a whole day to go through some of these issues exactly because we are trying to manage healthcare as a region. There are patients in Cavan who will need to be treated in Beaumont, a specialist centre for neurology, or the Mater, a specialist centre for cardiology. That patient flow is absolutely crucial and so patients are moving out of Beaumont at an appropriate stage so as to enable the specialist care. We have to think of healthcare as a region and that it is just as acceptable for people to move back from Beaumont to Cavan to free up the space for somebody from Cavan to go to Beaumont.”
“It is in Naas now and is working really well in Mercy, Tullamore and Kilkenny. That will enable us to increase our outpatient attendances both for new attendances and we will provide more services and clinics at the weekends and in the evenings. We will expand virtual care in hospitals and the community. We are also targeting delivery of over 26.7 million home support hours.”
“We now have 58% fewer patients waiting over 12 months compared to September 2021. We will continue to reduce waiting times for scheduled and unscheduled care in 2026. We have opened 1,481 new acute inpatient beds since the end of 2020. This year, we will deliver 177 acute and 428 community beds. Those are just as important as acute beds because they provide the opportunity for people to move out of hospital at an earlier stage and have the more suitable care that they need. The first new surgical hub opened in Mount Carmel in 2025. We expected it to deliver 3,000 procedures and it delivered 3,700 procedures. Of course, we are opening five more surgical hubs this year. Crucially, we will roll out the outpatient toolkit. That will be a big subject of discussion this year. We will roll that out across the hospitals in 2026.”
“While the Deputy's question is quite broad, I know that it is really about access to healthcare which is what we all want. It is a priority for everyone in this Dáil, for me and for this Government. In December, the HSE published its national service plan for 2026, which sets out the services that the HSE will provide with its funding allocation. This builds on progress we have already made this year and in 2025. For example we have seen a 10% reduction nationally in patients on trolleys at 8 a.m. in 2025 versus 2024. That does not even show the real performance of some regions and other regions which are performing less well. That story is much better in some regions again. Twenty-four hour PET breaches, the time spent in an emergency department, are down 16% for all patients and by 15% for patients aged 75 and over compared to 2024.”
“I thank the Deputy for the important question. I recognise that it is a very different Department in respect of statutory leave but I do want to say how we are looking towards a new maternity strategy and how we are trying to recognise all stages of pregnancy and the impact on women of the different adverse pregnancy outcomes that can happen. I will speak with my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Colm Burke, more broadly about what the Deputy has specifically raised.”
“This is an important reduction but that can only be expedited and augmented if we are recruiting for positions such as the one the Deputy described. I will follow up on it and find out what is happening.”
“I thank Deputy Carrigy for raising this important issue in relation to Longford. I cannot speak about the individual position because I have only just become aware of it but I will find out for the Deputy. More broadly, it is not acceptable to have vacant positions. We have vacancies in the health service and we need them to be filled. We need that for the supports that children in particular need. However, I would point to the fact that I asked the CEO of the HSE to put specific measures in place to address OT, speech and language therapy and physiotherapy waiting lists and reduce them to less than ten months. We started that initiative in quarter 4 of 2025 and I am pleased to say that the primary care therapies lists declined by approximately 15,000 between September 2025 and November 2025.”
“It is important that those proceedings are let be carried through by Mr. Gloster and his successor and to allow those proceedings to take place.”
“I thank the Deputy for raising this. I also thank him for acknowledging the different management that is there now, Sandra Broderick and Ian Carter, who represent a different management culture from that which has gone before. I also recognise the considerable work that Bernard Gloster has done in taking disciplinary proceedings of the kind we have never seen in the health system in respect of some of the senior management in Limerick who predate Mr. Carter and Ms Broderick. Those proceedings continue and are at different stages in the court process at the moment, so I want to be careful in what I say about them. However, I acknowledge there has been an effort in respect of the previous senior management in UHL to have a level of disciplinary process that has never been achieved in the health system before.”
“I thank the Deputy for the question. I would be obliged if she might share the details with me so that I can follow up directly to see what the specific circumstances are in the Mater, and specifically whether it relates to a particular condition or to broad access to the pain management clinic. If I could follow up with the Deputy directly, I will see what is going on.”
“The Deputy is right to highlight the opportunity Mallow presents and has presented for some time to HSE south west to provide step-down facilities and other healthcare facilities, particularly to help with the discharge from Mercy and Cork University Hospital. There have been beds there that have been available. I am having a full seminar with HSE south west on 5 February, when I will go through all of that in detail, including making sure all the beds funded are opened on time and in a timely way, as well as making sure all discharge pathways that currently exist are being fully utilised by all model 3 and model 4 hospitals there.”
“The work UHL is doing to make sure that is being delivered is based on weekend discharging and consistent patient flow. Last weekend, there 34 patients on trolleys on Friday, nine on Saturday morning, 15 on Sunday morning, it went up to about 30 on Monday and back down to 18 yesterday. The performance is consistently better and I thank every person in UHL who is making that possible.”
“It is clear to see how much University Hospital Limerick has improved over the past year. I am so disappointed to hear this constant doing down of UHL, as its performance, particularly since the 96-bed block opened, has been quite extraordinary. We look at the HSE figures every day. This morning, there were 248 people on trolleys. Our threshold for what is tolerable is 280, so it is like a good summer's day today and we are right in the middle of flu. According to the HSE figures, which are what we track throughout all of the hospitals, there were 18 patients on trolleys in UHL yesterday. In Galway, there were 39. Last week, in the same way, Limerick was outperforming Galway and other hospitals like Galway across the west and north west every single day.”
“Where I get projects to shovel-ready I have a commitment from the Minister they will be funded irrespective of the capital envelope as it is now. Our bigger challenge is not the allocation of funding at the other end but getting projects shovel ready. The Minister for public expenditure is responsible for two pieces here – implementing the terms of the accelerated infrastructure task force and making sure his officials ensure it is implemented, and then providing the capacity to fund in a range of different ways. I would welcome the Senator’s support with both of those crucial things for the people of the mid-west to make sure her party colleague delivers for them.”
“That is why full understanding of integrated care for the region is as important for the people of central Limerick as it is for the people of Clare. Everything that is delivered appropriately in Clare releases capacity for the over-congested site that is Dooradoyle and all the traffic implications for the people of Limerick and the need to move care in appropriate ways elsewhere. However, the first and most important thing is that we now have Cabinet approval and a plan. I have mandated the HSE to get the appropriate site. On funding, I ask the Senator to speak to her excellent colleague, the Minister, Deputy Chambers, in the Department of public expenditure and reform. He will be a key part of that. I have the funding for the relevant site but in all things, like all Ministers, I have a limited capital envelope.”
“I have spoken to health ministers from around the world, including when I was at the G20 summit, from Singapore, Indonesia and Norway about the different perspectives and what they are learning about how to design hospitals best, the right size, the best clinical distribution. I hope we and the people of the mid-west will be beneficiaries of the fact that we have a genuine opportunity to think quite differently. The clinical community will be at the heart of that as will the patient forum and public representatives. We will take the best clinical advice we can as to how to distribute services across the Limerick region and the mid-west more broadly. It is as important for the people of Limerick as it is for the people of Clare that more services are delivered away from UHL and in Ennis.”
“The best, most appropriate structure to do that is to consider it alongside the best clinical advice possible. I will be engaging with clinicians on the best way to structure that going forward once we have secured an appropriate site and have seen what flexibility that will give us as regards options A and B and the appropriate clinical distribution of the services across the two sites. I will take the clinical advice in relation to that, as I am sure, will the Senator, and put it at the centre of future development. We have a huge opportunity in the mid-west to do something we really have not had the chance to do with many other hospitals, which is to have a genuine fresh start.”
“There is no point in putting additional acute beds into Limerick if we do not put non-acute beds in other locations, particularly as this will allow us to move people out of those acute beds and move them to services somewhere closer to home. That is the essence of Sláintecare, and that is how patient flow works. I am sure the Senator will welcome all those things happening at the same time, particularly as they are codependent in the context of allowing patient flow to work. The second question was on the location of the maternity unit and the second emergency department. Our priority is to secure an appropriate site in relation to option B, as mandated by the Government, and to consider all of our options in respect of option C.”
“I also understand the need for non-acute beds in Ennis and Nenagh in the context of step-down services and as a key component of flow, which, the Senator will understand, is something that Limerick has improved enormously over the period during which I have been Minister for Health. I thank those responsible for their excellent management and I thank the staff for the extraordinary work they are doing. UHL is one of the busiest hospitals in the country, but it is also the one that is discharging best at weekends. It has the best level of consultant rostering at weekends, which is a consequence of the implementation of the reforms we have introduced in the past 12 years.”
“We did discuss the report in November. I knew then the approach I would be taking. I am very pleased to have spoken to the Cabinet about that first, as was appropriate, and to have secured its support for the approach I want to take, which is to implement all three options in the HIQA report and to meet the need for additional acute bed capacity and healthcare capacity more broadly across the mid-west. As Senator Ryan said, we are progressing with options A, B and C. Option A is the delivery of acute beds at the site. I thank the Senator for explaining it, but, as Minister for Health, I do understand the difference between acute and non-acute beds.”
“This debate has helped to shine another light on the need for transparency in pharmaceutical services and I thank the Deputies for bringing this motion tonight.”
“It is also true to say that there has been too much hidden in the charging in pharmacies, whether it is dispensing fees, as was shown through the HRT debate, or transparency on other things like private services that are reasonably paid for, like blister packs, BMI and a whole range of different things. That is why, along with the pharmacy regulator, I have required detailed receipts outlining the cost of every professional service that pharmacists should be allowed to charge for their expertise, including dispensing fees and a whole range of other things that Deputies Cullinane, Sherlock, Rice and I have discussed a number of times. Pharmacists are entirely entitled to charge for their expertise, but it should be transparent to their customers.”
“Separately, the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, as the regulator, will support with any necessary follow-up actions. We are introducing transparency in pharmacy. There are so many good pharmacists who are going above and beyond for their patients every single day. We all know who they are. They are absolutely brilliant. Their first concern and one of their obligations is to put patient safety first. That is what they do. They are obliged by their profession to take care of their patients. They are obliged to make sure that patients understand their medication and receive their medication in a way that is capable of being understood and is going to keep them safe. That is their obligation. There are so many pharmacists who are doing that well.”
“There will immediately be an analysis by the PCRS which the regulator may be involved with at any stage, and then we will lean into it in a much deeper way as the process goes on with an analysis of the phased dispensing claims that have been made to the HSE in a specific timeframe. This will be to examine what the criteria might be for any outliers in the phased dispensing scheme that may help to highlight those pharmacies that are in difficulties, and to have a very suitable, targeted probity process and targeted interventions and actions as may be appropriate, to be determined by the regulator. If there is a person in this House who disagrees with that course of action, I would like to hear about it. It is very important.”
“There was no Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil withdrawing from anything because it was never funded by the State. We have to have transparency in a developed State. We have to have the ability to set things out clearly and honestly. I am very glad for the opportunity Sinn Féin Deputies have provided with their time for us to be able to do that and place real clarity on it. I thank the Deputies for their engagement and for highlighting this important issue so that we can get to the bottom of what is truly a risk to people who are vulnerable and something that has perhaps been inflated by those who might have an incentive to cover what was done in the past and create very scary figures for private services for the future. I had a very important conversation with the regulator today.”
“I am also glad we have taken the opportunity to put a pause on this to get the best information and to work out with the clinical community which people need blister packs and for whom they should be provided, and how we as a State make sure our resources are going to protect the most vulnerable and not everybody. Some of the commentary and what has been said already may imply that we should reward those pharmacists who have been using the State's money wrongly for this by simply covering it off. I would rather show the Irish people what was going on first and then protect the vulnerable. Some of the commentary refers to people who are already paying it. What is going to happen to them? What have they been doing for some time? That was a private service. It was never a State-funded service. There was nothing to withdraw.”
“Whoever had an incentive to put figures like that into the media or into the debate knew what they were doing and knew it was not reflective of the practice that exists currently, where we are seeing fees of between €5 and €20, as reflected on the Deputies' own social media. That was a wrong thing for those people to do; it was frightening and wrong. I can completely understand why people would be so upset about that, especially when times are hard, especially in the winter and especially where it is perceived to be a new charge somebody is imposing and people do not have the information as to what has gone on in the backdrop. I am very glad for this opportunity to clear this up; I think it is the right thing to do.”
“We cannot have any profession using taxpayers' money in a way that has not been allocated, especially where that has been repeatedly communicated to them. It is an important marker. It is the responsibility of the Government and everybody here who is responsible for taxpayers' money. It is a different thing from making sure we continue to reassure people. Of all of the constituents who got in touch with the Deputies opposite on their social media, not one of them said they were already paying €50, because I checked. That is something that came into the vernacular last week, which was frightening for people and it was wrong.”
“We all agree here as public representatives that where somebody has gotten used to having a blister pack or chooses to have a blister pack, I can completely see how that has been a good and positive thing, even if some of the medical perspectives are very different. The groups we would be most concerned about are already the groups that pharmacists and GPs are most concerned about. If someone is getting phased dispensing, for example, as Deputy Cullinane has said, it is already the case that a GP has to sign off on that. There needs to be evidence in a pharmacy that it is being correctly done on a weekly or daily basis as appropriate. That body of evidence should be there if phased dispensing is being used correctly. That might sound very technical to people watching tonight, and I totally get that, but it is taxpayers' money.”
“There are many people who have been charging. Phased dispensing is a really important protection for people, particularly those getting psychotropic drugs, opioids and codeine. Those drugs are dispensed, and pharmacists are paid to dispense them, on a weekly basis or even in some cases on a daily basis. That is for the safety of the patient. Although we assumed together and I certainly assumed in relation to blister packs that it was a patient safety measure and a convenience - a whole range of different good things - actually the evidence is quite different. That is something we could talk about if we had more time or if we were more committed to the details of science. I really hope we have that conversation.”
“We are responsible for the money that taxpayers pay the State, which is then given to pharmacists. We are giving new funding of €50 million for pharmacists, as well as the funding within the pharmacy scheme. It is wrong for taxpayers' money to be used in a way that is not allocated. It is really important for me, even though it might not be as glamorous as simply just solving the problem, to take the time to get to the bottom of the issue and fix it over time, as I did with hormone replacement therapy, HRT. The many women who are enjoying their completely free HRT are the beneficiaries of that little extra time it took to do the job properly. In the same way, we will get to the bottom of the information here and find out who has been charging this inappropriately and how the regulator or others purport to deal with that.”
“It, along with the HSE, will be looking at this issue very clearly. They will be looking at the primary care reimbursement service, PCRS, data. People have received letters. There should be no change for those first two groups of people. If you have already been paying for blister packs, there will be no change under the community pharmacy agreement. If it has been free, I ask people to go in and speak to their pharmacists. Will it continue to be free? If it has been free, it will probably continue to be. If people have received letters, perhaps they want to share them with the regulator. It might be a scenario where a pharmacist who had previously been claiming under the wrong scheme is now trying to put the cost on the patient. As everybody here has correctly said, that is wrong.”
“There is a third group of people whose pharmacists have been giving them blister packs for free but charging the State under a different heading, as Deputy Cullinane referenced. They have been charging under the phased dispensing scheme, which is a very different scheme. Charging like that is wrong, inappropriate and contrary to numerous circulars that the HSE has issued. There is litigation to this effect against a sizeable private company that was wrongly doing this. There have been two sets of litigation and the State won on both occasions. It is wrong to give a service to someone and to charge the State wrongly under a different scheme. That is wrong, and I am glad that we have the opportunity to highlight that very wrong practice that some pharmacists in the State have been carrying out. This afternoon, I spoke with the regulator.”
“It was never funded by the State and there has been no removal of that service by this State. The Irish Pharmacy Union, IPU, confirmed that in a statement on Friday. I will outline what is different. There have been three groups of people. The first is those people who know they have always been paying for blister packs as a private service. They know that, we know that and Sinn Féin knows that because much of the commentary on Deputies' social media posts have told them that if their constituents have not. They have not taken the opportunity to reference that during the debate. Those people have been paying for blister packs as a private service. Another group of people have been getting blister packs for free because their pharmacists are giving them blister packs for free. I thank those pharmacists.”
“We are not opposing the motion and we are grateful for the opportunity to clarify what has been a very confused and inaccurate set of comments over the recent period. It is really important that we take the opportunity because a lot of people have been very frightened by this debate. I note from the comments that have been made in the first 20 minutes of the debate that not one of the Deputies referenced the many constituents who have been paying for blister packs for some time. I know they have that information because my colleagues also represent those constituents. I also know from their social media accounts how many people have contacted them to tell them they have already been paying for blister packs for some time. They have been paying fees of €10 or €20 for some time. This is, and always has been, a private service.”
“I am glad to have the opportunity to discuss this issue this morning. Ten years on, it is appropriate to recognise the work that has been done by so many people in this House to advance equality. As we all know, equality is a broad house. Advancing one person's equality beyond where it has been in the past does not mean taking from somebody else's. I reflect in particular on Deputy Bacik's point about feminism and equality more broadly. There is no threat to me or to the Deputy as feminists in advancing somebody else's equality. That is the way we have all come to our work here and I hope it is the way we will continue to work here. I hope we will stand together to continue to work for a compassionate and inclusive society, as we have done over the last ten years.”
“In relation to gender recognition, the Minister for children published the national LGBTIQ+ inclusion strategy in June 2025 along with the associated plan for 2025 and 2026. The remaining actions from the gender recognition review of 2025 are included in that strategy. A steering committee has been established comprising all of the important representatives. The Department of Social Protection will be participating and progressing relevant actions in line with its strategy and action plan. The national strategy also includes a commitment in the first action plan to develop national clinical guidelines for medical nursing and health and social care professionals delivering paediatric care to infants, children and young people with differences in sexual development. These are due to be published in quarter 2 of 2026.”
“Very clearly, it is for the Department of Children, Equality and Disability to deal with this, and it has been carefully reviewing key policy principles to underpin it and to ensure individuals are protected from harmful conversion practices, while safeguarding access to necessary and appropriate services for those seeking support. It is true that, as Deputy Bacik has said, there is complexity to some of the regulation around counsellors and psychologists. We are going through that with CORU. It is very important that these professions are regulated to a particular standard, as would be expected. That work is progressing. I might speak to the Deputy about it separately.”
“It is our sincere hope and expectation that this approach will not only strengthen the relevance and inclusivity of the final model but could also lead to improved outcomes by ensuring services genuinely reflect the needs of the populations they are designed to serve. It is a complex process. HSE and Department officials will work closely together to do it quickly, transparently and effectively. Given that it will take some time to complete the work, the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and I have requested that the HSE examine all avenues to improve interim care options while the model of care is being developed. In terms of the proposals on conversion practices, I want to emphasise that the programme for Government contains a commitment to advance legislation to ban conversion practices.”
“Their insights will illuminate gaps that clinical data alone cannot capture, such as the emotional, cultural and practical challenges that people face when navigating any healthcare service, including gender healthcare services. It is crucial that we avoid developing a model of care for a group of people without involving them and considering their perspectives. Their input is indispensable, and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and I are firmly committed to ensuring that stakeholders are heard and actively involved in the process. I want to assure the transgender community that all efforts were made to hear from you, that we want to hear from you and we are trying, in every way, to incorporate your perspective directly into the development of the model of care, as we do with every other model of care, as is appropriate.”
“To advance the model of care, the HSE has commenced a systematic review of the evidence base with respect to coexisting clinical needs in gender-diverse people, with support from the HSE library service. The interim results of that review were made available for public consultation in August this year. The HSE is now reviewing the submissions and completing the evidence review. A key aspect of the development process is stakeholder and public consultation. We want to get people's views. Incorporating the views of people with lived and living experience is absolutely essential in any medical model of care that is going to be effective, grounded in evidence and compassionate.”
“The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and I are very alive to the considerations that have to inform a fully comprehensive analysis. A cross-speciality clinic advisory group, which was established in collaboration with the RCPI and convened in June 2025, is supporting the design and development of the model of care. In addition, a working group, comprising several representatives with direct lived experience, has been formed and its first meeting was last week. The groups are a standard component of all medical models of care. The clinical advisory group operates as an independent body within the RCPI, reviewing proposals drafted by the working group to ensure they are clinically safe.”
“It aims to design clinical pathways to deliver safe and effective health and social care services for those seeking gender-affirming services. This work will also inform an implementation plan for its delivery. My Department has provided funding of €770,000 for the development of the model of care for 2025 and the work is expected to conclude in 2026. The approach to developing the model of care is clear and well established. It involves reviewing the best available clinical evidence, as well as incorporating insights from healthcare professionals, patient advocates and individuals with lived experience. The model of care will consider all available information. It will not be aligned with any one study, report or one way of thinking.”
“As in other countries, it is true to say that demand for gender-affirming healthcare services has risen significantly. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and I fully accept and acknowledge that the current public services are not meeting people's full range of needs. We also recognise the urgent need to establish more appropriate and comprehensive services. It is in that context that the HSE has established a new national clinical programme for gender healthcare to develop an updated clinical model of care. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and I take a very direct interest in the work that is going on there and the stages and reflections happening throughout the development of that model of care.”