{"id":399587,"date":"2026-04-15T10:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T10:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/399587\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T10:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T10:46:09","slug":"how-abandonment-of-noel-brownes-mother-and-child-scheme-became-a-defining-moment-in-irish-political-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/399587\/","title":{"rendered":"How\u00a0abandonment of Noel Browne&#8217;s Mother and Child scheme became a defining moment in Irish political history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Seventy-five years after Noel Browne\u2019s attempts at healthcare reform, Ireland still awaits the provision of free universal healthcare for all its citizens\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Dr Noel Browne, who attempted to introduce the Mother and Child scheme, which would provide free healthcare to mothers and children aged under 16\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/5f91357c-7105-4595-a408-00e51257d8ef.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Dr Noel Browne, who attempted to introduce the Mother and Child scheme, which would provide free healthcare to mothers and children aged under 16<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Seventy-five years ago, in April 1951, Ireland\u2019s political landscape was in the middle of one of its most significant and controversial crises since the foundation of the State. Health Minister Dr Noel Browne attempted to introduce free healthcare without a means test for all expectant mothers and for children up to the age of 16.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">At the time, Ireland had one of the highest rates of infant mortality in post-war Europe and many women had little or no access to medical care during pregnancy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seventy-five years after Noel Browne\u2019s attempts at healthcare reform, Ireland still awaits the provision of free universal healthcare&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3414,103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-399587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-department-of-health","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-care","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}