National Breastfeeding Week: Statements

I welcome the opportunity to address the House and to mark National Breastfeeding Week. It provides a chance to recognise the mothers, families, healthcare professionals, peer supporters and community organisations who support breastfeeding across Ireland. This year's theme is, "Every step forward: strengthening support for babies and families". The theme reflects the fact that improving breastfeeding rates is not about one intervention or one service. Every positive step, from maternity care to community support, can make a real difference. Breastfeeding is an important public health issue and contributes to giving children the best possible start in life. Breast milk provides babies with nutrients and antibodies that support healthy growth and development. It is important to the development of a baby's immune system and helps to protect against infections. Even small amounts of breast milk, particularly in the early days, can provide important benefits. There is also evidence to show that breastfeeding is associated with a lower risk of a number of childhood health conditions, including obesity and certain cancers. Breastfeeding can also provide opportunities for connection between a mother and her baby. However, breastfeeding is not always straightforward. Mothers' experiences differ and some encounter significant practical, medical, social or personal challenges. Our responsibility is not to judge individual feeding decisions. It is to ensure that every mother who wishes to breastfeed has access to timely, consistent and evidence-based information and support. The many health, social and economic benefits of breastfeeding show that it is much more than nutrition alone. I welcome that we have seen positive progress in recent years. The latest figures show that 65.8% of babies in Ireland were breastfed at birth in 2025, compared with 63.8% in 2019. We are also seeing more mothers continue breastfeeding beyond the early weeks. The proportion of babies breastfed at three months has increased from 38.8% in 2016 to 51.5%. This is the highest level recorded since official records began in 1988. These are significant achievements and reflect the sustained commitment of healthcare professionals, policymakers, voluntary organisations and mothers across the country. The growth in specialist breastfeeding supports, together with increased public awareness and investment in services, has helped more mothers to start breastfeeding and continue for longer. Our maternity and community services are giving mothers greater access to skilled advice and practical support when they need it most. However, while we should recognise and celebrate this progress, we know that more needs to be done. Ireland's breastfeeding rates remain below those of many comparable EU countries. Too many women still face barriers to breastfeeding, whether due to a lack of timely support, social and cultural challenges, difficulties in continuing breastfeeding when they return to work or unequal access to services and information. We must ensure that every mother who wishes to breastfeed has access to consistent, evidence-based support throughout her breastfeeding journey. The Government remains committed to improving breastfeeding rates and to ensuring that mothers and families receive the support they need. That is why it is embedded across our national health strategies, including the Healthy Ireland framework, the Healthy Ireland strategic action plan, the national maternity strategy, the obesity policy and action plan and the national cancer strategy. The sustained improvement in our national figures shows that investment, co-ordinated action and access to appropriate support can make a difference. We are committed to building on that progress. The HSE's breastfeeding in a healthy Ireland action plan has provided the framework for turning ambition into action. I welcome the strong oversight and leadership of the implementation group and the national breastfeeding co-ordinator, as well as the collaborative approach between my Department and the HSE in delivering this plan. In 2024, the HSE published a desktop review progress report on the implementation of the 31 actions in this plan. Of the 31 actions, 14 have been completed and a further 15 are in progress. These actions represent real, practical steps to strengthen breastfeeding supports and empower more mothers to breastfeed. The increase in the number of mothers breastfeeding at three months is particularly important. Supporting mothers to continue breastfeeding, where that is their choice, requires ongoing assistance after they leave maternity services and return home. An independent evaluation of the phase 1 postnatal hubs, published in 2025, provided strong evidence of the positive impact these services are having. The evaluation found that the hubs are delivering meaningful improvements in postnatal care and enhancing access to essential services for women and families. Feedback from service users highlighted the value of having dedicated postnatal supports available in a welcoming and accessible community setting. These services help women feel supported, informed and confident during the postnatal period. They also help to bridge the gap between maternity care and the support available to families at home. In 2024, an updated national infant feeding education programme for healthcare providers was launched. This training ensures consistent, up-to-date and evidence-based advice is given to parents by healthcare professionals. Since the programme's launch, it has been completed by more than 800 healthcare professionals, demonstrating a strong commitment to improving infant feeding knowledge and support. I have also secured funding to allow for an increase in lactation consultants. The HSE is actively working to recruit people for these positions and allocate them to communities experiencing the greatest levels of deprivation. I am mindful that these lactation consultants will be in the areas where they are most needed. Every maternity unit in the country and Children's Health Ireland now has access to specialist infant-feeding or lactation support. We have also provided funding to ensure breast pumps are available for mothers of critically ill and pre-term babies. This was done in recognition of the particular challenges those families face. Breast milk is vital for premature and critically ill babies, protecting against severe infections and protecting their immune systems. For mothers facing these difficulties, direct breastfeeding is not always possible. In many cases, expressing milk becomes their only option. That is why it is so important that we ensure access to breast pumps and supports for mothers during what is already an incredibly difficult time. There has been a significant increase in breastfeeding resources in recent years, reflecting a strong commitment to supporting women and families across the country. We have seen considerable investment in both professional and peer-support services, helping to ensure that mothers can access the information and assistance they need at every stage of their breastfeeding journey. There are now over 249 breastfeeding support services listed on MyChild.ie, providing families with a comprehensive and easily accessible directory of supports in their local area. In addition, online breastfeeding support is available seven days a week ensuring that mothers can access advice and reassurance when challenges arise regardless of where they live or the time of day. Our focus must remain on continuing to increase awareness of available supports. Breastfeeding rates are not shaped by individual decisions alone. They are influenced by the conditions in which mothers and families live. Access to maternity care, skilled advice, family and community support, appropriate workplace arrangements and clear information can all influence whether a mother is able to begin and continue breastfeeding. We must, therefore, consider breastfeeding not only as a health service issue but as a matter requiring support across Government, workplaces and wider society. As we reflect on the message of National Breastfeeding Week, the progress achieved in recent years demonstrates that sustained investment and co-ordinated action can deliver real change. However, that progress cannot be taken for granted. These services complement and support availability throughout maternity and community healthcare services. They help bridge the gap between clinical care and day-to-day parenting offering practical guidance and encouragement in real-life settings. Across Ireland, breastfeeding support groups and community-based services provide valuable advice, information and peer support to everyone who needs it. For many mothers, connecting with others who have shared experience can make a significant difference to their confidence and ability to continue breastfeeding. The availability of these supports both in-person and online helps ensure that no mother feels alone on her own breastfeeding journey. These are important parts of the building of a breastfeeding-friendly culture and creating communities where women feel supported in their infant feeding choices. Our task now is to build on what has been achieved to address the barriers that remain and to ensure that every mother who wishes to breast feed can access supports regardless of where she lives or her circumstances.

I join with the Ceann Comhairle in welcoming our guests. It is wonderful to have such young interest in politics and I hope many of them will come back to join us at a later date. I was fortunate enough to be able to breastfeed each of my four children and I was also fortunate enough to be in a position to donate milk to the human milk bank in Fermanagh, so I come to this discussion with some personal experience of breastfeeding but also with an understanding that every mother's experience is different and every child who is fed is different. I think that matters because breastfeeding can be wonderful but it is also not easy and at times, it can be really challenging. It can hurt, babies can struggle to latch on and mothers can worry about supply. There can be this constant judgment depending on a woman's background and culture and there could be the concern over whether the baby is getting enough along with mastitis, tongue tie and premature babies. I had one of those. There can be babies who simply will not feed as expected and exhausted mothers trying to figure this out all while recovering from childbirth. One of my children was a pre-term. He was born at 32 weeks and I remember the struggle of finding a hospital-grade pump. The support from the nurses in the special care baby unit in the Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar was first class. I remember the pumping and dumping days because of the medication I was on and I remember his little 2 ml feeds. It was very tough but we got through it. I would describe us as a pair of tough onions. When those challenges present, telling women the benefits of breastfeeding is not enough. They need help. The Minister of State mentioned the 66% of babies who were breastfed at birth in 2025 but that rate drops to 51% by the time babies are three months old. However, exclusive breastfeeding is recommended for the first six months, so while progress is being made, that progress is being made from a historically low base. Therefore, the question for us has to be what prevents a woman who wants to continue breastfeeding from doing so for as long she wants. A significant part of that is specialist help. In July of this year, just over 59 whole-time equivalent lactation consultants were working within the HSE while another 11 roles had been funded but had not been filled, including five new roles that were promised under budget 2026. That represents 16% of breastfeeding consultants who should have been in maternity hospitals, children's hospitals and public health. This is all because the HSE says that all vacancies are subject to additional review and approval processes to ensure that recruitment activity is aligned with service priorities and available funding. Those roles should be exempt from recruitment restrictions. Rather than simply announcing additional posts, I want the Government to tell us what adequate staffing actually looks like. I want to implement targeted recruitment and retention strategies and I want us to immediately fill those 11 roles. The HSE previously used the international benchmark of 0.77 specialist infant feeding posts per thousand births within maternity services so publish the figures, tell us what sufficient staffing should look like and increase lactation consultants. These were mentioned in the Minister of State's speech. How many of them are there? How much is being put aside? Is that new money or is that to back fill those 11 posts? The Minister of State should tell us how many posts are actually required for every maternity hospital and every community healthcare area. How many are in place and operational? How many are vacant? Does that service meets requirements? Another question we need to ask concerns how we recruit those specialists. Many HSE lactation specialist positions are tied to nursing or midwifery. A current HSE vacancy is advertised as a clinical midwife specialist in infant feeding and lactation with the successful candidate required to hold or subsequently hold obtain the International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, IBCLC, qualification. However, the IBCLC is an internationally recognised specialist lactation qualification. Why should someone who has developed that specialist expertise necessarily have to be a nurse or a midwife before the HSE can employ them as a lactation consultant? I am not suggesting that we replace nurses and midwives - far from it. Their expertise is enormously important. What I am suggesting is adding another route into that service of suitably qualified lactation specialists who can provide that specialist care as part of multidisciplinary teams because we need more expertise not fewer routes into it. The research supports the importance of specialist qualification. Irish research involving public health nurses found significantly greater confidence in managing breastfeeding difficulties among those who were IBCLC qualified. We need that specialist expertise in our maternity hospitals but critically we need them in our communities as well. Those first few days and weeks after mam comes home are absolutely crucial. When community services were mapped, one area reported having two public health nurses who were qualified lactation consultants but they could not be released as dedicated lactation consultants because of their general public health nursing workload. Think of what that says. We had the expertise and we had the mothers but pressures elsewhere in the health service prevented them from actually using that expertise. We cannot have a successful breastfeeding strategy that depends upon community support while leaving the service that is expected to provide that support understaffed. Baby Feeding Law Group Ireland has also made a very important point around supporting breastfeeding being much broader than simply telling women that breastfeeding is good. It involves maternity services, primary care, employment rights, maternity leave, education, equality and how we regulate those commercial interests. It is also calling for Ireland to fully implement the WHO international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes and I fully support it in that call. Parents deserve independent evidence-based information about feeding their babies without that information being shaped by commercial interests. I welcome the note around the specialist pumps. That is very important. We deserve to have another conversation though - one that requires a lot longer than the time I have - and that is around the national plan for infant and young child feeding during emergencies. That deserves much more attention than it has received to date.

I welcome all our visitors to the Gallery. We know that breastfeeding is one of the most important positive health behaviours for our newborns. I will use my time to highlight the importance of local volunteer support services. To see successful initiation of breastfeeding in our maternity hospitals alongside a consistent approach and support from hospital staff, mothers should receive information about local volunteer support services provided by accredited highly trained counsellors with organisations such as La Leche League of Ireland, Cuidiú and others. This information should be received as inpatients before heading home at the very latest. These support organisations are there 24-7 and provide that all-important wraparound care in their community. Babies and mothers cannot wait until 9 o'clock on a Monday morning when a public health nurse or a hospital lactation consultant is back on duty. Unfortunately, in many cases a two-day wait or more can spell the end of breastfeeding, while interventions to establish milk supply not received in time can see mothers facing into motherhood triple feeding, an exhausting and arduous journey and one that is ultimately unnecessary if timely support is received. Money spent promoting HSE support services is poorly spent if local 24-7 peer auxiliary support services are not also mentioned, highlighted and promoted. On breastfeeding rates, support needs to be available where and when it is needed. My own county of Meath has one community lactation consultant for a wide geographic spread with many large and growing towns. The service is, quite simply, overstretched and insufficient. This means that mothers and babies can expect to face a six- to ten-week wait for an appointment when they most need help. Those that can are choosing to enlist the help of private lactation consultants to ensure breastfeeding does not come to a premature end while those who cannot struggle unnecessarily or switch to formula, feeling that they have no other option. Pain and discomfort in breastfeeding and ending breastfeeding before the mother is ready have a serious impact on maternal mental health and knock-on effects on the family, and it does not need to be this way. Thankfully, the service is much less stretched in other areas but that postcode lottery needs to be addressed so there is equal access to this service for mothers the length and breadth of the State. A joined-up approach is what is needed to see higher levels of initiation and retention and an overall increase in breastfeeding figures. The future health of our population can only stand to benefit from such an approach.

I also welcome everyone who has come to the Gallery for this debate on national breastfeeding week. Deputy Clarke put it quite well about how everyone’s journey is quite different with breastfeeding and we need to support women in the choices they make, remove barriers for those who want to breastfeed and put the supports in place. I want to talk about those supports. I have particular concerns around the staffing levels, as I raised yesterday with the Minister for Health, especially the staffing in place for the domino scheme in Cork. We know the domino scheme is found to be supportive of breastfeeding rates, but in CUH in Cork it has been seriously curtailed because of 80 nursing and midwifery vacancies. While the domino scheme remains operational after 12 October, the revised arrangements materially change the domino model. It will not offer the continuity of care that women using the service value so much. The questions my constituents are asking is why the scheme, which offers continuity of care to all patients, is being curtailed when it should be expanded. My understanding is, from 12 October, antenatal clinics will operate with one domino midwife with two outpatient domino midwives being redeployed. The domino support during labour will depend on operational feasibility, postnatal home visits will transfer to early transfer home teams, a dedicated 24-helpline will redirect to the emergency line, and the domino antenatal classes will be removed. There are real concerns among a lot of women in Cork about the domino scheme. We know it is really supportive and that it is supportive of breastfeeding and provides lots of other supports for women. There is real concern, anger and frustration among women in Cork about these changes which will fundamentally alter the model in which women meet their domino team during pregnancy, receive care after birth from the familiar midwife and receive home visits from the same team afterwards, which is so important. They want urgent action on that. It links to the broader issue we have been having around staffing in the health service. I raised it yesterday and, frankly, what I got from the Minister for Health was a lecture, blaming everybody else bar the Minister responsible. She wanted to blame the regional executives, the health committee and everybody. We need the Minister to engage. There are serious implications for services. We know the domino service supports breastfeeding, but that service has been curtailed in Cork right now, and we are not getting adequate response from the Minister about staff shortages and how they are impacting on important services. There was mention earlier of Ellen Coyne’s report in The Irish Times, based on parliamentary questions submitted by Marie Sherlock, about shortages of lactation consultants. Five new lactation consultant roles remain empty because of HSE budget issues and eleven funded posts are not filled, accounting for 16% of the overall lactation consultants in the country. Then we heard the Minister of State say in her speech that she has secured funding to allow for an increase in the number of staff, but we heard that last year and the posts were not filled. It is really frustrating for people if they hear these announcements on budget day and the day after about funding and new services and supports, because if it is not resulting in staff on the ground who can support women with breastfeeding and other services, it is meaningless unless we have those staff in place to the work that is crucially required. These are just two examples of areas where what is effectively an embargo on staff, if we call it straight, is having real impacts on the services and supports that are being provided to new mothers in Cork and right across the country. It is not good enough and we need to have a frank and honest discussion with the Ministers about staffing in the health service and how we can adequately staff the services so that we can deliver the kinds of supports that people want and so that the right kinds of supports, from the domino scheme to lactation consultants to other supports that women need, are available across the country in all our constituencies. What we need, instead of the response we got from the Minister yesterday, is a more constructive engagement with the arguments we are putting forward, such as reasonable examples of staff shortages, but we are not getting that. We are just getting deflection and blaming the regions for the issues as opposed to saying what kind of health service we need, what kind of supports women need, how you put those in place, how we fund those and what a realistic budget for the health service looks like. As the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council said, it is currently not a realistic health budget. We need to ensure funding is there so those supports are there in the community. Yesterday, I was talking to my sister, who is a midwife, about breastfeeding. Some of the key points she and her colleagues wanted the Minister of State to hear were that there needs to be more public spaces for breastfeeding, more support at work and more research around public awareness of breastfeeding and why it is so important. We need to ensure that any of the barriers put in place which prevent a woman who wants to breastfeed from breastfeeding are removed. We need to understand what those barriers are, why they are in place and how we collectively address those and tackle them. This debate and discussion are an important part of that to air some of those so that we can understand what needs to change in order to ensure that anybody who wants to breastfeed can do so without facing barriers and that there are levels of support. The crucial message I want the Minister of State to take away is about staffing. If she is going to come into the Dáil and say she has additional funding, it has to materially result in additional staff being available on the ground to support women across the country. That is the crucial thing we need to get right for the people.

I will start off by saying it is great we are having these statements. For far too long we have not talked about these issues. When I say “we”, I particularly include men. Not nearly enough men are supporting breastfeeding and access to breastfeeding and removing the pressure that is so often associated with it. Last Friday I had the opportunity to be involved in the organisation of an event in Leopardstown called BreastFest. It was organised by some of the lactation consultants locally, including Roisin Sullivan, whom I know through my wife’s experience with breastfeeding. Our little girl is three years old and Aoife went to see Roisin Sullivan when she was breastfeeding. The level of support and encouragement, without any pressure or expectation, that she got from Roisin, but also the support she got from the group of women who went to that breastfeeding class with her, was extraordinary. It made her journey through breastfeeding all the much easier. I pay tribute to those lactation consultants all over Ireland who are providing that support to women and giving them that encouragement where they need it and giving them the expertise when things are not working. I have friends and sisters who breastfed. One of my sisters had a very positive experience and one had much greater difficulty. I have seen the pressure that comes on women when things do not work out. The pressure sometimes comes from friends who unwittingly say things like, "How much milk are you generating?", "Are you following the app?", or "What's it telling you to do?". The pressure that comes with that can sometimes be self-defeating. What is most important is that we facilitate access to breastfeeding and the choice for mothers to make if they can and if they want to. No mother should feel any less because she cannot or because she does not. We should be encouraging them to do it whenever they can. I had the opportunity to speak at the event in Leopardstown and to sponsor a speaker who came down from the North to talk about some of the difficulties that people can face when breastfeeding. I was struck that it was full of mothers who were really committed to doing the best for their children, something that is true of all mothers. Those who want to and can should be encouraged but there was a community as well and the community aspect to it is really positive. That comes through the lactation consultants and the groups they organise. I acknowledge that Deputy Sherlock is here and I am a member of the breastfeeding caucus that she leads. It is a great group and there is a lot of positivity to that as well in terms of pushing the policy agenda within the health sphere to facilitate it and provide the funding to do what needs to be done. What is most important is to provide encouragement and facilitation. Through Róisín Sullivan, I have brought groups of breastfeeding mothers from my constituency in here to Leinster House and we go down to the coffee dock. The great thing about that is not just that they are here and they get to make the trip to Leinster House, which is lovely in itself, but that it is visible and normalised. Far too often women who are breastfeeding in a public place get a look from somebody suggesting they should go somewhere else, somewhere private, because this is not the place to do it. That should never be the case. It should be possible, easy and acceptable for women to breastfeed anywhere and at any time that they need to or want to and we need to move that way. The other thing that is lovely about bringing mothers with their children into Leinster House is what we can hear in the Chamber now. I am not sure if it can be heard on the microphones, but there are a number of families in the Public Gallery. Some of the children are voicing their own views on breastfeeding and we can hear it. We do not often enough hear children's voices in Leinster House but this is one area where we absolutely can and it is really important. We have talked in the past about the low breastfeeding uptake in Ireland. Ireland does not perform well in European terms but it is improving all the time. Thanks to the people I have mentioned who are attending these breastfeeding groups, giving advice as lactation consultants and organising events like Breastfest in Leopardstown last Friday, south Dublin has seen the greatest uptick in breastfeeding of any region in the country. Credit goes to those women who are organising it and it is predominantly women. I was happy to see a few dads at the event on Friday as well. Credit is due to them for looking into this, deciding that it works for them, pushing the issue, getting the advice they need, getting the help and support they need, learning to deal with the issues that every mother and indeed every parent faces, but specifically in terms of breastfeeding that every mother faces in dealing with the difficulties that come along, finding solutions for them and ensuring that they do what they think is best for their child without pressure, without expectation and without judgment from anybody else. That increase is a really good sign but of course it does not come without resources and without support. One of the things we can do in this Chamber is to put in place the framework that supports people like Róisín Sullivan and lactation consultants throughout the country providing extra resources, to have them there first of all, as well as the district health nurses who support this, who provide advice on home visits and in clinics, making sure those people are there. Administrative support for them is an issue in my area. There is a difference between Wicklow and south Dublin. There actually is administrative support in Wicklow because there is a receptionist in the office who sets appointments and deals with the admin of sending nurses or lactation consultants out, arranging meetings, arranging groups in the centre or whatever it is. We do not have that in south Dublin. For a reason that I cannot quite fathom, the HSE has absented itself from any administrative support for the very people who need to have their hands free to do the work that needs to be done to support women who are breastfeeding. That is one thing. In every area there is a different challenge. Whatever it is, as a body we need to be saying we support breastfeeding, we support access to breastfeeding, we support support for breastfeeding and we support support for mothers who want to make a decision in terms of the information, support and assistance they are given. That is what we can do but the tangible way we do that is through the Department of Health and the HSE. I acknowledge that senior people from the HSE attended the event last Friday as well. The ones who were there are committed to that. I was very grateful that they spoke to me about issues they face, including resources they need. I will support that in every way I can and all of us in here need to do that. As I said, our hope was to have many of those breastfeeding mothers in here in Leinster House next Wednesday. I am not now sure whether that will go ahead. We have to make a call on whether Leinster House will even be open next Wednesday. Today we are having statements on something that I think has the capacity to be only positive for the people involved and from the point of view of the results and the positive experience they have. Speaking from my own perspective, as somebody who cannot breastfeed but was present when my wife was going through that experience, it was very positive for us. I believe it was very positive for my daughter. Certainly, my wife would say that the experience she had, the bonding, the closeness and the facility were great. That is what I would wish for from these statements and from any policy on breastfeeding and the promoting of it. As I said, as part of the breastfeeding caucus we have a list of requests for policy improvements, budgetary provisions and all the rest. Without going into all of that, I ask that we, as a Chamber, come together to do whatever we can to support, encourage and provide access to breastfeeding for any woman who wants to do it with their child. I congratulate them on it, but equally there is absolutely no pressure. For women who cannot or choose not to, it does not mean anything less. That is a choice they have to be able to make themselves and we have a role to facilitate that choice for them.

I warmly welcome that we are having these statements today. It is the tail end of National Breastfeeding Week. I warmly welcome all our guests in the Gallery today, including those from La Leche League, Baby Feeding Law Group Ireland and Bainne Beatha. Mary Byrd has been fighting the fight for breastfeeding in this country for many years along with Dr. Liz O'Sullivan and others. I offer a heartfelt welcome to them all in coming here today. It is really important that we mark and celebrate all that is going on to promote and help women in this country to breastfeed. There has been progress with breastfeeding in Ireland over the last decade. Some women do not want to breastfeed and that is fine but lots of women want to but cannot because of the absence of supports. That is why the former Senator Pauline O'Reilly, Deputy Clarke, I and others came together a number of years ago to set up the Oireachtas working group on breastfeeding. It is wonderful that we have Deputy Barry Ward and others now because it is really important that it is not just about us women talking about these issues but also that we have the men in our lives talking about these issues as well. As my husband says, everybody talks about how hard childbirth is but very few ever talk about the difficulties that can associated with establishing breastfeeding. Once it is established and once the mother gets over that hump, the wonders of breastfeeding are something that many of us cherish. I am the proud mother of three children and I am delighted that I was so lucky to be able to breastfeed those three. It was because of the help that I got in the Coombe hospital when I gave birth and had a C-section, and particularly because of the help of the local Cuidiú organisation in Phibsborough, that I was able to continue my breastfeeding journey. I know there are women across the country who do not have access to those supports. It is wonderful that we are having this conversation here today. We need to talk about three issues. First is culture. Second are the actual structural supports in place. Third are the policy and legislative supports to ensure that every woman in this country who wants to breastfeed can breastfeed. We have made progress on information and awareness. However, there is inconsistent information across primary care and within our hospital system. I pay tribute in particular to the Bainne Beatha report which was published about four years ago but was quite groundbreaking in its time. It outlined mothers' experience of breastfeeding both in the hospital and in their communities. There is inconsistent and patchy access to peer-to-peer support across communities and counties. There are different attitudes and cultures within our communities, particularly for women from different backgrounds and from different economic classes. We need to talk about that. Too often it is seen as a middle-class thing to do and it is not. We need to do an awful lot more, in particular in working class communities to make sure that the supports are there. With regard to structure, it has already been stated that there are 69 funded positions for lactation consultants in this country but we know that there are 11 unfilled positions. Five were promised last year but, unfortunately, lactation consultants, as low-hanging fruit, have become the collateral damage with the cuts we are seeing within healthcare. I join Deputy Clarke in saying that we need to see those positions protected and ring-fenced. The small investment that goes into those supports reaps an enormous benefit and we need to make sure that the supports are there on a 24-hour basis across hospitals and in communities. A key issue is the availability of lactation consultants in communities. We know there are about 476 registered international board certified lactation consultants, IBCLCs, in this country, yet a tiny fraction are working for the HSE. There is a huge inequality of access issue because many are working within the private sector and it should not boil down to whether someone has money and can access a lactation consultant to improve their chance of breastfeeding. A second key issue relates to midwives. There are fewer midwives now than in 2019. That has an impact with regard to breastfeeding supports in the system. My colleagues in the Gallery this evening talk about maternity care assistance within maternity hospitals and supporting breastfeeding after women have given birth - the various lines of support within a hospital. Public health nurses are another key part of the support. We know that there is a serious shortfall in public health nurses across certain communities. One in three areas is now a prioritisation area. That means public health nurses are reducing the level of contact. We hear accounts of women waiting up to two weeks after giving birth for support and their first visit from a public health nurse. The referral to a lactation consultant often has to come through the public health nurse. In the last few seconds, I just want to say that significant work must be done with regard to developing a national breastfeeding strategy. The Healthy Ireland action plan expired a year ago, so we need to see a new action plan and for it to be resourced. We also need to make sure that breastfeeding takes a prominent role within the national women and infants health programme. I was very disappointed to hear the Minister of State say that there was no resourcing or funding planned for that next year. We need to make sure it is in place. We need to look at supporting breastfeeding beyond health and for breastfeeding to be supported in our education system, in particular with regard to resourcing Coimisiún na Meán to enforce the advertising provisions that are now in place. Those provisions have been there for a while but have not been enforced. I pay tribute to everybody who is here today who advocates for breastfeeding mothers across the country. We have a lot of work to do to make sure that every woman who wants to breastfeed can breastfeed and is supported to do so in Ireland.

I welcome the opportunity to mark National Breastfeeding Week and to recognise the thousands of parents, healthcare professionals, advocates and community organisations that work every day to support breastfeeding across Ireland. Like everyone else, I take the opportunity to welcome the very small visitors to the Public Gallery today. I thank their parents for their ongoing advocacy and engagement on these important issues. National Breastfeeding Week is a really important opportunity, not only to celebrate breastfeeding, but also to reflect honestly on the barriers that continue to exist for families. It is an opportunity to name breastfeeding as a public health issue, an equality issue, a workplace issue and, ultimately, a societal issue as well. Breastfeeding provides significant health benefits to both infants and mothers. It supports healthy development in early childhood, strengthens immune systems and contributes to positive long-term health outcomes. For mothers, breastfeeding is associated with a range of health benefits that can reduce the risk of certain illnesses later in life, but despite those well-established benefits, Ireland continues to have one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in Europe. Recent reporting has highlighted that while breastfeeding initiation rates have improved over time, too many parents who wish to breastfeed face challenges and find it difficult to continue. The evidence is clear that many mothers stop breastfeeding earlier than they intended, not because of lack of commitment but simply because of lack of support. That should be a concern to all of us. When a mother decides to breastfeed, that decision should be supported by our healthcare system, our workplaces and our communities. Too often, parents encounter obstacles at every stage of the journey and that is why we need to move beyond simply encouraging breastfeeding and instead focus on creating the conditions that enable breastfeeding to succeed. First, we need stronger investment in breastfeeding supports before and after birth. Mothers should have access to accurate, evidenced information during pregnancy, allowing them to make informed decisions and prepare for infant feeding. This is particularly important for mams living with chronic illnesses or other health conditions, who may sometimes receive conflicting or outdated advice. Support must also continue after birth. Access to lactation consultants, public health nurses and community-based supports can make a significant difference in helping mams overcome challenges in the early weeks and months. Access to these services remains a perennial issue. I know many women in my area of Dublin 15, which was part of the former community healthcare organisation, CHO, 9, have huge difficulty in getting access to lactation consultants. We must ensure that breastfeeding is embedded within our national health planning. As the national women and infants health programme strategy is reviewed, breastfeeding should be explicitly recognised as a core component of maternal and infant health care. Incorporating clear breastfeeding objectives into future policy frameworks will provide a stronger base for sustained investment, workforce planning and service delivery. If we are serious about improving outcomes, breastfeeding cannot be treated as an afterthought. It must be recognised as a central part of preventative healthcare. Second, we must facilitate breastfeeding in the workplace. As equality Minister, I was very pleased to extend break protections to two years under the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act. This represented an important step forward for working mams. However, the rights that are now present in legislation have to be vindicated in reality through practical supports. Breastfeeding mothers continue to face difficulties accessing suitable facilities to express and store breast milk at work. We should examine how employers can be supported to provide dedicated lactating spaces, refrigeration facilities and clear workplace policies that allow breastfeeding mothers to continue feeding their children after returning to employment. Third, we must ensure that breastfeeding mothers receive information free from commercial influence. The WHO's international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes was developed to protect families from inappropriate marketing practices that could undermine informed decision-making. Parents deserve access to impartial information based on public health evidence not marketing strategies. The HSE has taken some policy steps in this area, but further progress is needed to ensure effective implementation and enforcement. Public health education, professional training and awareness campaigns should be fully independent of commercial interests linked to the manufacture of infant feeding products. Finally, I want to discuss the attention that infant feeding should receive in the context of emergencies. With the Government's emergency preparedness booklets going out to all households right now, it is timely to reflect on how an emergency situation can impact breastfeeding mothers and their infants. Breastfeeding provides a safe and reliable source of infant nutrition that does not depend on access to stockpiled formula. I would be supportive, therefore, of calls for advancing a national infant and young child feeding in emergencies preparedness plan and ensuring that infant feeding considerations are integrated into broader resilience and emergency response strategies. I understand researchers in Technological University Dublin and Queen's University Belfast have put forward a report in this regard. The conversation around breastfeeding is sometimes framed as a matter of individual choice alone. Of course, mams make their own decisions about infant feeding, and those decisions should always be respected, but we also have to recognise that these choices are shaped by circumstances. A mother who lacks access to support, who must return to work without adequate facilities, who receives conflicting advice, or who encounters social stigma is not making a decision in a vacuum. National Breastfeeding Week reminds us that improving breastfeeding rates is not about placing pressure on parents, but about removing barriers.

Fáiltím roimh gach duine atá anseo, na tuismitheoirí nua agus na páistí ar fad san áireamh. Tá mé an-bhuíoch deis cainte a bheith agam ar an ábhar tábhachtach seo, go háirithe for my two beautiful sisters who have had their beautiful children. My sister and her wife just had their first child, of whom I am now the godfather. It is about celebrating mothers and also the beautiful connection between mother and child. I want to highlight issues that have arisen in my constituency. I was contacted by a group of mothers who were worried about a breastfeeding support group in north Dublin that was due to close because of staffing pressures. I thank the Minister for contacting the HSE when the matter was raised with her. It was subsequently confirmed that there are no plans to discontinue that vital support. This is fantastic news for local families, all the advocates and everyone involved. However, the point is that those mothers should not have been put through that stress in the first place. If it were men who breastfeed, there would be a breastfeeding support group on nearly every corner. New parents have enough to worry about; whether the services they need will still be there next week should not be one of those worries. The figures I received from the HSE as part of that correspondence show the importance of such supports. In the first six months alone, that network in my constituency helped 550 new mothers. From speaking to those mothers, I know it is not just a breastfeeding support group but also a community within which women can share their experiences. I would love to see more of that. I join colleagues in congratulating all involved in the Baddies Breastfeed mural created by artist Nuala Convery. I saw it on Instagram and it is great. Well done to all involved. It is a brilliant and positive way of encouraging new mothers to feel confident breastfeeding. However, we cannot encourage breastfeeding and then leave women worried. Will the Minister of State look into what caused the situation whereby women availing of the support group I mentioned were left distressed? We must ensure it does not happen again to mothers in my constituency and across Ireland. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I welcome all the visitors in the Gallery, including the small ones. Above all, let us try to do this for every mother. These services should be protected. Gabhaim buíochas le gach duine agus le mo mháthair féin.

I thank all the Deputies who contributed to this debate. I welcome the clear commitment expressed on all sides of the House to supporting mothers, babies and families. I particularly acknowledge Deputy Sherlock's advocacy, the work by Deputies Clarke and Barry Ward at the committee of which they are members, and Deputy O'Gorman's work in this area. I especially thank and welcome all the guests who are here for today's debate. I welcome everybody in the Gallery who works and advocates in this area, the new parents, including those who are breastfeeding, and, most importantly, the little ones they are breastfeeding. Fourteen years ago, not in Ireland, I was canvassed by a candidate running for election who was handing out all her literature while breastfeeding. That has stuck with me because I thought how cool it was. It was 14 years ago, in a different time, and it was a great example of breaking down barriers, raising awareness and normalising something that is absolutely and utterly normal. Moving forward 14 years, we are here celebrating the theme of this year's National Breastfeeding Week, which is "Every step forward: strengthening support for babies and families". The theme reflects that improving breastfeeding rates requires a multifaceted approach, with communities, health services and the Government working together. Every step forward can contribute to improvements in the provision and delivery of services. It is evident that breastfeeding improves population health, can contribute to reducing inequalities and delivers long-term benefits for families and, indeed, for our health service. In 2025, the Government approved the establishment of a breastfeeding steering group made up of representatives of the HSE, the All Island Institute of Public Health and international experts. The group has provided invaluable support and expertise in the development of a new national breastfeeding strategy. The Department of Health intends to build on the progress of the HSE's Breastfeeding in a Healthy Ireland action plan. It is the Department's ambition to develop a new whole-of-government national breastfeeding strategy and to continually increase breastfeeding supports to all mothers and families in Ireland. Work on the new strategy is well under way. In November last year, the Department of Health held a breastfeeding consultation event that brought together representatives of academic institutions, advocacy organisations and colleagues from the Department in Northern Ireland, as well as key stakeholders, including La Leche League of Ireland. The event provided an important platform for participants to listen, work together and contribute to a shared vision and priorities for the new strategy. The contributions made at the event have been invaluable in informing the development of the strategy. This week, the consultation report was published on the Healthy Ireland website. The Department of Health also held bilateral meetings with many other Departments to discuss how they could contribute to the new breastfeeding strategy. Those discussions considered how Departments could implement the We're Breastfeeding Friendly initiative in the workplace to support colleagues who are breastfeeding. We know that a fragmented effort will not deliver sustained change. We must, and we will, continue to work together. The new strategy will be judged not by its vision but by its measurable impact on, and improvement in, breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates. That requires being explicit about ownership, timelines and reporting structures. From the outset, we will build in strong monitoring, evaluation and research systems. We will continue to be guided by both evidence and data. To that end, the Department is progressing a national infant feeding survey with the All Island Institute of Public Health, which is the first survey of its kind to be conducted since 2008. It is crucial that we gather up-to-date insights into current breastfeeding and weaning practices across Ireland. The survey will record breastfeeding and weaning practices across three different time points, namely, seven to ten weeks, five to eight months and ten to 13 months. However, to gain relevant insights, we must fully understand the factors that influence mothers' feeding decisions, including the factors that influence whether mothers begin breastfeeding at all, whether they continue to breastfeed, when they wean their babies off the breast and why they decide not to breastfeed. We know those decisions are shaped by complex factors, including barriers, challenges, cultural influences and the level of support available to mothers. Many Deputies have spoken this evening about how invaluable it is to have community and workplace supports in place and how we must do more to ensure they continue to be rolled out nationwide. Listening to the experiences of mothers has been central to this process. The development of the new strategy has also been informed by engagement with marginalised communities, including the Traveller community, the Roma community and young mothers. To be truly effective and inclusive, the strategy must not leave any group behind. This work will strengthen our understanding of the structural, cultural and practical barriers faced by mothers and will guide us in our efforts to make meaningful and lasting improvements in breastfeeding rates, both now and into the future. A new national breastfeeding strategy is expected to be published this year. The All-Island Breastfeeding Policy Network was established earlier this year between the Department of Health and its counterpart Department in Northern Ireland. Chaired by the All Island Institute of Public Health, it aims to strengthen North-South collaboration on breastfeeding and to improve breastfeeding rates through shared knowledge and expertise. Supporting breastfeeding requires policy measures alongside practical and accessible support for mothers when and where they need it. It is important to acknowledge the significant work undertaken by both the Department of Health and the HSE to improve breastfeeding rates and increase the resources available to breastfeeding mothers. Since 2021, there has been a fourfold increase in lactation consultant posts. As many Deputies have pointed out, we have unfilled posts. The Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor, confirmed to me just before she left that it is a priority for her to ensure those roles are filled as soon as possible. Notwithstanding that challenge, the investment has ensured that every maternity unit in the country and every Children's Health Ireland facility now has access to specialist infant feeding or lactation support. Through the budget this year and last year, the Department of Health has provided funding for breast pumps for mothers of critically ill newborns and preterm babies. The Department will continue to work closely with the HSE on improving breastfeeding resources in Ireland. The progress made to date shows the difference that sustained investment and collaboration can make. However, more remains to be done. Our ambition is to ensure that every mother who wishes to breastfeed can access consistent, practical and evidence-based support regardless of where she lives and of her circumstances. I would like to thank the HSE, advocacy groups, experts and community movements that support women across Ireland in this regard. I thank all Deputies here today for their contribution to this evening’s statements and for their shared commitment to supporting mothers, babies and families.