Pádraig Rice
Cork South-Central · Social Democrats · Ireland
“There is no clinical reason this should not be extended to oral contraceptives. Pharmacists are highly trained healthcare professionals. They should be allowed to operate at the top of their licence. They are available in every community and are very accessible.”
“I welcome the Bill. We spend a lot of time inside these Houses talking about other parts of reproductive healthcare and not enough about contraception, so it is really welcome that we are having a focus and discussion on it and are moving forward with changes.”
“The oral contraceptive pill has been around for well over half a century and is one of the safest and most well-studied medicines available. In 2019, the World Health Organization publicly stated that oral contraception should be available without needing prescription.”
“I move amendment No. 8: In page 5, between lines 20 and 21, to insert the following: “Report on prescription-free oral contraceptives 4. The Minister shall, within six months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before Dáil Éireann a report on a proposal to allow registered pharmacists to dispense prescription-free oral contracepti…”
“We are talking about the prescription of oral contraceptives as called for by the World Health Organization, as set out by the Irish Pharmacy Union and as endorsed by the previous health committee. We are looking for a report on that with the detail of the various elements, if more detail is required.”
“It is important that we allow pharmacists to operate at the top of their licence and give them as much power as possible, and alleviate pressures on GPs. As I said, this is recommended by the World Health Organization and endorsed by the previous health committee and the IPU. That is the background to this amendment.”
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“I too congratulate the Minister of State on her reappointment as Minister of State with responsibility for mental health and also her appointment as Government Chief Whip. I will talk about funding, policy and the law. On funding, for far too long mental health services have been the Cinderella of our health services. Decades of underinvestment have left us with understaffed and underresourced services. The system needs a major overhaul to shift the focus towards proactive and community-based services, but this kind of reform requires real investment. We simply cannot have another five years of stagnated budget allocations. By now the mental health budget should represent about 10% of the overall health budget.”
“We learned today that the potential cost of the national children's hospital has soared by €100 million in just a matter of months. It now stands at nearly €2.5 billion, although no one believes this will be the final cost. It is outrageous that after all this time, nobody in this House knows for sure how much this project will ultimately cost or when it will start treating patients. There is a completion date for June. We have missed many completion dates already. How confident is the Government that this hospital will be open and this date will be met? Crucially, we need to know when it will start treating patients.”
“The chronic shortage of public health nurses needs urgent attention. Not for the first time, developmental checks for those aged under five have been suspended in some parts of the country. These checks are vital to ensure milestones are being met and to identify medical issues and developmental delays. At the moment, the best the HSE can offer to some parents is a QR code to a guidance book. This is not right and not good enough. The situation should come as no surprise. In 2018, the health service capacity review said there would be a 46% increase in demand for public health nurses by 2031. Despite this, figures released to the Social Democrats in October showed there were 86 fewer public health nurses in 2024 than in 2020. The number of public health nurses should be increasing, not decreasing.”
“It is clear that the Government is listening to big developers, corporate landlords and speculators, instead of renters, first-time buyers and homeowners. Many things could be done to address these issues. Ultimately, we need a radical reset on housing policy, we need more State involvement in the direct provision of affordable homes and we need the Government to start listening to renters, first-time buyers and those facing homelessness. Otherwise, nothing will change.”
“According to the National Oversight and Audit Commission, in 2023, the number of social houses in the city increased by just 180. This is despite the fact that there were 3,500 applications for social housing and more than 600 people homeless. There is huge unmet need and too many people are living in overcrowded and damp conditions, some unfortunately, in emergency accommodation and others sleeping on the streets. At the same time, there are 350 vacant council houses across the city. Over the past five years, the council has spent almost €1 million boarding up these houses. It is utter madness and it is causing huge frustration for people. We need to turn these houses around and create homes for people. Despite all of these failures, the Government seems to be doubling down on its plans.”
“Regarding rents, yesterday the Minister for public expenditure defended the plans to rip away protections for renters by removing rent pressure zones and pulling the rug from under many renters. The Government should be strengthening renters' rights, not stripping them away. Renters deserve fair rents and security of tenure, not higher rents and more insecurity. We could ban no-fault evictions and create a rent register and a deposit protection scheme. There are lots of things we could do to enhance renters' rights. We in the Social Democrats have set them out in extensive detail in our policy documents. I encourage the Minister of State to have a look at them. On social housing, there is also a failure to deliver. In Cork, we are not building enough social housing for people.”
“They are failing people every single day and it is getting worse, not better. It does not surprise anyone because everyone can see how bad it is. Instead of being honest about its housing policies, we get outright lies - lies about the housing completion figures, what the Government is doing and what it is not doing. Really, it is fooling no one. I have real concerns about the Government's affordable housing schemes. There is one in my constituency on Seaberry Drive in Grange, Cork. Houses in the scheme cost €389,498 plus a 5% equity stake. On what planet is a house costing more than €400,000 affordable? We need an urgent review of the Affordable Housing Act 2021, because it is not delivering affordable housing for people in my city or across the country.”
“Like my colleagues, I thank the Labour Party for this debate. I have spent the past couple of years listening to the debates in this House on housing. As a younger person, I find it really hard to stomach the Government's rhetoric on housing. Rarely does it acknowledge how bad the situation is, with unaffordable rents, soaring house prices and record homelessness. There is a real catastrophe for people in their daily lives because of the Government's housing policies. Instead, time and again, the Government tells us that it is turning a corner. It has turned so many corners it is now going around in circles. When it is not going around in circles, the Government is blaming the Opposition for not supporting its Bills. We do not support the Government's housing policies because they utterly fail.”
“We need to build a republic of equals, one where everyone has access to affordable housing, quality healthcare, a good education, a decent job and a stable future - a country where there is a social floor below which no one is allowed to fall and a country where everybody has an opportunity to thrive and to flourish. To achieve that we need to move in a new direction and take a different approach. Without that, I strongly suspect that in five years' time we will still face the same crises in health and in housing. I fear we will miss our climate targets and that crucial public services will remain threadbare. None of this is inevitable but, unfortunately, this is the path that has been chosen by the parties in government.”
“A simple search of the document shows Cork is only mentioned seven times while Dublin is mentioned 29 times. A more in-depth analysis exposes the absence of a number of key infrastructure projects. There is no mention of the long-overdue Luas for Cork, there is only vague mention of light rail where appropriate. There is no commitment to a new public library for Cork city centre, while the promise to work towards the completion of the events centre does not fill me with hope, given that the sod on that project was turned in 2016 by the then Fine Gael-Labour Government. At a bigger picture level, the new programme for Government lacks a coherent vision for the State.”
“While there are some welcome proposals in other areas, such as the abolition of the carer's means test, implementation will be key. The shelves of Government Departments and State agencies are stacked high with dusty reports and unfinished action plans. The State has long suffered from implementation deficit disorder and nothing in this latest plan indicates that things will be significantly different from the past. We need specific, concrete, measurable, time-bound and achievable actions. As a representative for Cork, I am disappointed the programme for Government fails to address many of the pressing priorities for our city and our county. Ireland's future development depends on Cork being a sizeable counterbalance to the capital.”
“There is no doubt that there are some positive elements, but even these have been underpinned by non-committal language. We need to do more than explore the recruitment of HSE-employed GPs; we need to start it. With hundreds of thousands of people waiting for community services and therapies, the best the Government can do is consider measures to attract and retain health and social care professionals. On social policy, there is a lack of bravery. There is no mention of drug decriminalisation, assisted dying or access to abortion care. We need policies in this area that are evidence-based and grounded in care, compassion and kindness. There is also no mention of collective bargaining or the living wage and the poverty points are wooly at best.”
“The new programme for Government continues the failed housing policies of the past. They have left us with record levels of homelessness, soaring rents and unaffordable house prices. The health section of the programme lacks vision. The very thing that should underpin this entire section, Sláintecare, gets but two passing mentions. So many of the projects, such as the national children's hospital, digital health records or the statutory homecare scheme, should have already been delivered, while other initiatives lack any semblance of ambition. How is it that, almost eight years into Sláintecare, the programme for Government is still only talking about extending free GP care to 12-year-olds? The aim should be free primary care for all within the lifetime of the Government.”
“I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak on the new programme for Government. Having read the document from start to finish, it is my firm view that it fails to provide for transformative change. Over the 162 pages, most of the commitments are vague, notional or regurgitated. There are very few new ideas and it is completely devoid of the promised new energy. Instead, what we get is more of the same. However, more of the same will not deliver the transformative change that is deeply desired and urgently required. In particular, it will not deliver the change that is needed on housing, healthcare, childcare, disability services and climate action. This is deeply disappointing, particularly in housing where the previous Government's own expert commission called for a radical reset in policy.”