Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The Minister states, and I agree with this, "we cannot have a situation where we are developing a model of care for a group of people who are not involved and whose voices are not heard" and that "a key part of the development of this model of care will be consultation with stakeholders" and so on. He also states that this is a message he really wants to get across. What would be better than getting a message across would be to actually do it. This is not what has happened. Trans people have been excluded from all this discussion that has taken place.

The HSE had a meeting on 9 February 2023, which was billed as the future of transgender care in Ireland and which was without a single trans organisation at the table to represent their community. The Minister of State can tell me whether the Government has agreed to it but the HSE has unilaterally abandoned the programme for Government's commitment to a WPATH-based model of care without consultation with the trans community. It did not consult any trans organisations on any aspect of deciding to spend more than €1.4 million on a new transgender model of care, hiring a new clinical lead or participating in a clinical study collaboratively with the UK.

The Minister for Health promised to meet with Trans Healthcare Action, which has done amazing work on this. I hosted a briefing in the AV room recently with that organisation. He promised to meet its representatives three months ago and that meeting still has not taken place.

Trans healthcare can be provided well. We had a doctor from Catalonia at the AV room briefing who provided a picture of 36-day waiting lists and 71% of adults receiving HRT on the first appointment. It is based on informed consent. That is what we need to do. We need primary care access. We need to inform, educate and empower GPs so this is a locally provided service, as all healthcare should be at a primary point. We need informed consent and evidence-based practice. We need community co-production, which is not currently taking place; that is, real consultation and engagement with trans people. The Government should be leading on this, as opposed to allowing the HSE to abandon its promises.

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