Labour’s Health Spokesperson Marie Sherlock TD has called on Government to reimburse women who have been forced to pay out of pocket for hormone replacement therapy (HRT) medicines, despite a Budget 2025 promise that the medicines would be free from January 2025.
Deputy Sherlock said:
“It has been absolutely unacceptable that women in this country have been strung along with a promise of free HRT for the past number of months. Government announced with great fanfare that HRT would be available without charge from January 2025, yet failed entirely to engage with pharmacists, organise the scheme, or plan for its actual rollout. That there was no coordination in advance of such a significant announcement is farcical and amateur in the extreme.
“This is consistent with the Government’s freewheeling, short-termist attitude to election-getting promises in 2024 – headlines first, homework later.
“To add further injustice, we are now told that the refusal to reimburse is because the Government doesn’t want to cover pharmacy dispensing fees. This means women who followed the Government’s timeline, who may have paid hundreds of euros in good faith, are being left high and dry. Women are paying the price for a Government that didn’t do its homework
“It is a particular burden on women with lower incomes – the very people who this policy was supposed to support. The promise of free HRT was a recognition of the need to improve access to menopause care.
“I am deeply concerned that up to this point, some women may have gone without this necessary care, because of the cost.
“The Minister must ensure that women are reimbursed for a scheme that was supposed to operate from 1st January 2025. This is about fairness, accountability, and ensuring that women’s health is not used as a political football.”