Today marks the beginning of endometriosis awareness month. This is a month-long campaign in which we highlight and draw attention to the challenges faced by one in ten Irish women and one in ten women globally who experience this chronic disease. Endometriosis is a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows around the womb and the vital organs in that area, causing many difficulties for women. As I said, it affects one in ten women and there is no cure. The symptoms include chronic pain, chronic fatigue, pain during sex, fertility issues, heavy bleeding, irritable bowel syndrome, IBS, severe impact on quality of life and impacts on mental health, with many women reporting suicidal tendencies. It is a severely debilitating disease and I reiterate that one in ten Irish women have it.

The problem is that it takes, on average, between seven and 12 years to get a diagnosis in this country. Diagnosis takes so long because the condition is often misdiagnosed or under-diagnosed, with many women reporting that they have been told repeatedly that the problem is all in their head, is a normal part of menstruation or related to anxiety, stress or mental health. Many of these women have been prescribed mental health medication rather than being properly tested.

The only way to diagnose endometriosis properly is through a laparoscopy procedure. Women must often push and fight to get this very simple and basic diagnostic treatment. Ultrasound will not detect endometriosis. There are no clinical guidelines for GPs on this. Many GPs do not know or recognise the symptoms and signs of endometriosis in women, which leads to it taking many years to make a diagnosis. The longer the disease is left unchecked and unmonitored, the more damage it does internally.

We also need education for young girls in this country. Women should know, from a young age, what is a normal period and which pain is normal and which is not normal. They should not have to miss days from school or be bedridden every month because of this condition but that is what happens to many women here.

Endometriosis has varying degrees of severity, ranging from stage 1, the mildest level, to stage 4, the most severe level. The symptoms I outlined are among the main symptoms but every woman is different and has a different experience.

What action is needed now? We need to reduce the diagnosis time to a maximum of one or two years. We need to have a clear clinical pathway for treatment. When they finally get their much-needed diagnosis, many women are simply left to their own devices with no access to proper consultative care or after-care. We need clinical guidelines for GPs in order that they can detect and diagnose the disease early on. We need proper menstrual education for young women in schools. We need wraparound services in pain management and mental health services. We also need training and increased specialisation to provide the proper, gold-plated standard of excision surgery as opposed to ablation.

I commend the hard work of the Endometriosis Association of Ireland, which is a voluntary association working with little resources and funding to highlight this. I ask that colleagues would share on their social media that it is the beginning of endometriosis awareness month and that we must take action to address the clear deficit in women's healthcare for this disease.

This week is also local enterprise week. On the local level, I know the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment is undertaking a number of online engagements with the local enterprise offices, LEOs. Excuse the play on the term but I am talking about the LEOs as opposed to Leo. I welcome that engagement. I had a Commencement matter on this issue this morning, specifically on the green for micro scheme. On behalf of the Tánaiste, the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, confirmed that as of today there is to be an announcement that this pilot scheme will be extended throughout the country. That is good and timely news for the 31 local authorities and it is timely that it should come at the beginning of local enterprise week.

I acknowledge the work of the LEOs. They do an amazing job in encouraging enterprise and supporting start-ups, but more importantly, they support people who have had a fall, who get up again and who try again. That is a great entrepreneurial skill for people who fail in business, through no fault of their own in many cases. I acknowledge it is local enterprise week. I thank the workers on the ground in the LEOs across the 31 councils because it is important. The old proverb about great oaks from little acorns is very true and is applicable to enterprise. Also, great enterprise happens when people have small thoughts and little ideas and they are courageous, ambitious and determined to get them over the line. We need to support those people.

I had the opportunity to look at the Tánaiste's Twitter account the other day, something I do not do often because I do not really engage much in social media. I was struck by an apt entry which said:

Today's jobs numbers lay bare the devastating impact the pandemic has had on the economy & employment. Over 400k jobs have been lost & a quarter of our labour force is now unemployed.

In the next entry on his Twitter account he says, "A new National Economic Plan will be put in place to ensure we return to full employment no later than 2023." It is important that the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment acknowledges all of those issues and it is great that he does so. He has a great way of being concise in his messaging and he has hit the button with those tweets. I would ask if we could have the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment come into the House at some stage to address those challenges because they are enormous, particularly in light of Covid.

I take this opportunity, which many politicians do not do but which I want to, of acknowledging the untimely death and sad passing of Fr. Enda McDonagh, a theologian and a remarkable man. He was the private chaplain to former President Mary Robinson, which many people would not know. He had no conflict between that work and his other work. His work on ecumenism and peace was amazing. He was an outstanding man who managed to stay in St. Patrick's College, Maynooth for many years. He turned down preferment and promotion. It is a measure of the man that he was made an honorary canon of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the national cathedral of the Church of Ireland, based in Dublin. That is important. I suggest that anyone who is interested in knowing more about this man would have a read of the obituaries column in Saturday's edition of The Irish Times. It was a moving and extensive piece about his work for Ireland.