Health (Provision of Contraception Prescribing Service in Retail Pharmacy Businesses) Bill 2026: Second and Subsequent Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-16
============================================================

Laura Harmon (LAB), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I welcome the Minister to the House. The Labour Party welcomes this Bill, which will allow pharmacists to prescribe contraception in certain circumstances. It is a sensible step that will help to improve access to the free contraception scheme, which was launched in 2022. We all know that many barriers exist in Ireland in terms of cost, geography or simply time for many people when trying to access a GP. That is particularly true in rural areas or socially disadvantaged areas. Empowering pharmacists to renew prescriptions is a sensible solution to one part of that problem.
We believe the age range for the free contraception scheme should be extended beyond the current range of 17 to 35. There are women well into their 40s and beyond who need access to contraception. In our view, raising the age to 40 at a minimum would cost just €5 million. We believe this should happen without delay.
As was mentioned, research by the National Women's Council has pointed out other barriers to access that exist with regard to the scheme. Its research found that 31% of women experience barriers to access to contraception. There is a real issue with access for migrant women, including those in IPAS centres, who will not have the PPS number needed to access the scheme. There are also issues around cultural beliefs that shape attitudes to contraception in certain migrant or perhaps Traveller communities and we should ensure that women in these communities are met with sensitivity and appropriate support to enable them to access the scheme in whatever way works for them.
We believe this Bill is a very positive and welcome step. I commend the Minister on it. It is also a timely reminder that we need to ensure the scheme works for every woman in this country. That means expanding age limits and looking seriously at how we remove any existing barriers to access.

---

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/2026-07-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:17+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-16