Healthcare Policy
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-05
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Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (FG), Dún Laoghaire

When a new scheme is established, it must be done in a legally robust way. It is necessary to identify a reason these clinicians and not those clinicians are included. For example, the European Endometriosis League, EEL, and the British Society for Gynaecological Endoscopy, BSGE, criteria were picked. All of those clinics that were on those very defined lists automatically came onto the scheme. The clinics that the Deputy is referring to in Athens and Romania were not among those accredited by the EEL or BSGE. We said this clearly at the time. We asked NWIHP to engage further to see had they and could they meet the clinical standards to enable them to be within the scheme in a legally robust way. NWIHP has engaged with Athens and Bucharest. That process is not complete. I expect there will be some positivity and some negativity in relation to that. A relationship has also been developed with Bordeaux, which is, of course, much closer. There is a dedicated centre there and we are going to include that on the improved list. It is a live and iterative list that we are trying to develop all the time but it has to meet the clinical guidelines as well for our clinicians to refer people on to that scheme, which was one of the barriers in the past.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-05/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:44+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-05