Women's Health Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-15 ============================================================ Mary Butler (FF), Waterford I thank the Senator for the way she has portrayed this in relation to welcoming the positives because we have made a lot of changes in the past six years especially. I am taking this Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill. I thank the Senator for the opportunity to update the House on the third women's health action plan that was launched on 8 July. To be fair, the Senator asked about 25 questions, so there is absolutely no way I will be able to get through them all. I have to put on the record that in the past five years the Government has made considerable progress in women's health, publishing three women's health action plans setting out practical actions and targeted investments to improve experiences and health outcomes for women and girls across Ireland. Since the establishment of the women's health task force in 2019, more than €180 million in additional funding has been invested in women's health. That was needed, and we all agree wholeheartedly on that. The Department of Health now has Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill as Minister, but also two Ministers of State, namely Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor and me. In the previous Dáil, it was the same in that there were two female Ministers. That is reflected in what we have seen in relation to the women's health task force, and from all the female Members in this Dáil, the last Dáil and the Seanad, who brought to the fore the fact that women's health had not been funded and was not given the respect it deserved. The plan will build on our knowledge of women's health through research and innovation and will spotlight important areas such as endometriosis and cardiovascular health. Recently, the Minister announced €2 million in funding for women's health research. This is the first time Irish research funding has been dedicated specifically to women's health. The Minister has put a huge focus on endometriosis since she came into the role. It is important to note that, during our Presidency of the EU, one of the four major conferences that will be held in Ireland will be on endometriosis. Another will be on mental health, I am delighted to say. The €2 million investment aims to address a historical gap in knowledge and understanding of women's health issues and the impact of gender on health outcomes and experiences. Major improvements are happening across services: enhanced access to proactive and preventive healthcare to support a better quality of life; the embedding and upscaling of women's health initiatives put in place through the implementation of the previous women's health action plans, including, as the Senator knows, free contraception, specialist menopause services, mental health services, ambulatory gynaecology clinics and postnatal hubs; the promotion of social inclusion, connectedness and equity to improve the experiences of marginalised groups of women; and the spotlighting of key areas that women and girls have asked us to prioritise, including endometriosis. We know that endometriosis is one of the most common gynaecological conditions in Ireland, affecting approximately one in seven women, although the true number is unknown. This plan will continue to focus on how we can improve access to specialist endometriosis care and treatment. As the Senator knows, we have established two super-regional specialist centres, one in Tallaght University Hospital and another in Cork, alongside the development of five regional endometriosis hubs. There was specific investment of over €5 million in the provision of these specialised services between 2021 and 2025. This includes investment of over €2 million last year to further drive the development of these services. The national endometriosis framework recognises the importance of timely fertility support for women. It promotes integrated care between fertility and endometriosis services, with structured referral pathways supporting women to access the most appropriate care for their needs. Fertility specialists can investigate and manage endometriosis and, where clinically indicated, refer patients for publicly funded assisted human reproduction treatment. On the Senator's question, any consideration of the introduction or use of saliva-based genetic tests for endometriosis in the Irish public health service would be a matter for the HSE, in consultation with clinical experts in the field of endometriosis and the Department. --- 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/seanad/2026-07-15/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:16+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-15