I thank Deputies Collins and Kenny. This is a serious issue and I fully accept the Deputies' representations. I absolutely take Deputy Collins's point. We cannot have children not getting these developmental checks, we cannot have parents who are worried and we certainly cannot have the kinds of delays the Deputy has referenced. I will commit to taking this up at a senior level within the HSE this week to see what measures can be put in place. If there is a certain area that is significantly understaffed, and there…

I agree that it is not good enough. We need a resolution to this and we need it more quickly than one is now coming about. I will raise it with the HSE and come back to the Deputies with a note. If they would like, I will set up a meeting with HSE officials so that they can explain exactly where we are. Other parts of the country are not experiencing this difficulty. Some might be but there are plenty of well-staffed public health teams all over the country. We have invested a huge amount in public health and massi…

I am not proposing that they ask GPs to do the developmental checks. What I mean is that, if parents see something with their child that they are concerned about, they should go to the GP. I am not asking the GPs to replace the public health nurses in providing the general checks.

I thank the Deputy for her ongoing representations, made on behalf of the good people of Carlow, on the health services they deserve. I will provide some good news on the orthodontic lists. For people in Carlow, rather than getting the service in Carlow, the priority is getting the service for these children. I will report to the Deputy and the House some very good news. Over the last few years, we have invested a lot of money in getting children the orthodontic care they need. The waiting lists have been too long.…

There might be some competition with Kilkenny but I take the Deputy's point. She can rest assured that this Government will continue to invest in health services for the people of Carlow. I was delighted to be able to visit, with Deputy Murnane O'Connor, the upgraded ambulance base in Carlow in the last few days. We now want to continue with that progress of the permanent ambulance base in a state-of-the-art facility across the road in the other facility. On orthodontics specifically, the south-east region includes…

We are currently drafting the implementation plan for the next three years of the national oral health policy. There will be a regional view but with something as specialist as orthodontic care, the priority is making sure children get the care. We all want care provided as close to us as possible and we must always strive to do that. While orthodontic treatment is, hopefully, one of a small number of interventions a child might need in their entire life, it can be life-changing. As parents, we may have to travel a…

I have just had a back-and-forth discussion on this issue with Deputy Murnane O'Connor. Good progress is being made. I know there are still parents who are anxiously waiting. I fully accept that and we must get to all of these children. It is important to note that in the lifetime of this Government, the number of children waiting has fallen by 44%. That is great to see. In the Dublin and mid-Leinster region, there has been a reduction of nearly 80% in the number of children waiting. There is good momentum. This is…

I fully take on board what the Deputy said. It is very worrying for these children and their parents. Good progress is being made. We have to go further. I am happy to ask my Department to engage with the HSE and revert to the Deputy along with Deputy Cullinane, who tabled the question, with a note relating to category five and give them more detail for Louth and Meath, the counties referred to by Deputy Ó Murchú.

The Deputy referred to two cases. If he sends me the details, I will ask the HSE to take a look and revert to him directly.

What happened here was that the HSE published national procedures without discussing the issue with me and without proper consultation with the Department. I got a phone call from a fantastic activist who is also a Fianna Fáil councillor, Teresa Costello, asking me what in the name of God I was doing removing supports from women. I said that under no circumstances were any supports being removed from anybody. I said that a review was in place but the purpose of the review is to provide additional supports. We know …

Regarding the proposal that was put together, the HSE did consult various stakeholders, including service users, nurses, health and social care professionals and the Irish Cancer Society. I have also met fitters and suppliers and they asked that their views be considered, which is fine. Of course, we should listen to them and I am sure they will have something to add. Unfortunately, the HSE did not consult my Department because it would have got a very different answer. I am very open to whatever works for women. U…

The national cancer strategy provides recommendations concerning the monitoring, testing and provision of comprehensive care to people who have an inherited predisposition to cancer, and the national cancer control programme, NCCP, leads on the development of services for this potential patient cohort. The national cancer control programme hereditary model of care was published last August. I recognise that Deputy Stanton has been advocating on this issue for some time. That is a very important step forward. The na…

The service line is essentially a subset of the national cancer strategy, so any funding we get will be in the context of funding through next year for the national cancer strategy. There is also a separate funding line for the genetics and genomic strategy, which is fairly recent. Specifically on those services for patients with a predisposition to cancer, we have direct ordering of BRCA testing, which was introduced in 2017 for ovarian cancer patients. It was expanded to breast cancer patients in 2021 and to pros…

I will ask the Department to revert to Deputies Bruton and Stanton. I want to mention good progress in two other areas. Two new types of testing were introduced last year for specific treatments. The first was homologous recombination deficiency testing for treatment of ovarian cancer. The second test is for NTRK gene fusions, which can lead to cancers of the brain, head, neck, thyroid, soft tissue, lung and colon. Also, the NCCP breast family history project is under way. This will streamline and standardise the s…

As the Deputy said, I have met the group in question, which is very active and effective in Donegal. I will highlight some of the important progress that our healthcare workers in Letterkenny University Hospital, LUH, have achieved. It really is very encouraging to see. In the last while, they have reduced the number of patients awaiting first appointment by two thirds, which is fantastic. I will double-check, but I think in just the last year they brought that figure down from 243 patients to just 85. Obviously, w…

I thank the Deputy. As he said, the focus right now is on getting these consultants in place. I fully accept that. Letterkenny has approved two full-time posts, with 100% commitment at the hospital and, as the Deputy said, there is also a third post. The focus is on these endocrinology posts. There was very effective intervention by central HSE for recruiting more consultants for Letterkenny, on the back of the visit I had there some time ago. I will engage again with central HSE and the HR team to see what else we…

Certainly the next time I am in Donegal there will be no issue with that. We are very clear on what the issue is; it is a lack of recruitment. We have the money and we have the posts. We need the advanced nurse practitioners and the endocrinologists. I want to use the time to get the posts in place. I am very aware of the issues being raised and there is ongoing engagement through the HSE. Of course we would never rule out a future meeting.

If the child is being referred for primary care psychology, that falls under my remit. If the case is more severe, it might fall under the remit of the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, in terms of the children's disability networks.

If it is in my remit - it is mild to moderate and a primary care referral - will the Deputy send me on the details? I will look into it and revert to the Deputy with a note.

What appears to be proposed here is an opt-out for service providers. From the outset, there has been a core policy principle that the legislation would not forcibly highlight or identify the specific service sites where termination of pregnancy is being provided and it would allow them to continue in relative anonymity where preferred. To accept this amendment would risk undermining that principle and, therefore, I will not be accepting it. It should also be remembered that the psychological impact of these protes…