Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-02-10 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central Without question care for mothers particularly postnatal is absolutely important. Despite what the Deputy said, the Government has made a lot of progress in this area over quite a number of years, in particular the establishment of nine postnatal hubs, giving women access to postnatal care in community settings. Additional funding of €2 million in 2025 will initiate four further hubs which will bring the total network to €13 million. Some €28 million in new development funding has been invested in the national maternity strategy, transforming maternity services for mothers and babies. Over 550 additional full-time staff have been funded across maternity services, including 44 consultants, and 381 nurses and midwives. In terms of the mental health dimension, the expansion of specialist perinatal mental health services has been prioritised and again funding has been provided for additional posts this year to meet the demand, particularly in the busiest of hospitals. The HSE is reviewing the model of care this year with a view to further expanding services as per the programme for Government. The perinatal mental health service is available in all 19 maternity hospitals nationwide, supporting pregnant women and women with a baby up to one year old with an existing or new mental health challenge. Work is under way to deliver Ireland's first mother-and-baby unit with a site currently being confirmed at St. Vincent's hospital. There have been a lot of service improvements. Without question we have more to do and we will continue to invest in this area as we have in maternity more generally. There will be a successor to the current national maternity strategy. The current one runs from 2016 to 2026. That is imminent and work is under way on that. The programme for Government commits to the mother-and-baby mental health unit, doubling the number of multidisciplinary teams for pregnant women, increasing the number of perinatal mental health midwife posts, and proactively providing mental health supports through maternity hospitals following trauma events connected to pregnancy and childbirth. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, is strongly committed to this. There are a range of other programmes in the gynaecological and obstetric area where there have been very substantial investments and improvements. That has to also be acknowledged. Significant developments have taken place with postnatal depression and care after pregnancy. We acknowledge clearly the need to do more and are prepared to do more. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-10/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-10