Pádraig O'Sullivan
Cork North-Central · Fianna Fáil · Ireland
“Imagine being the father of two boys who have Friedreich's ataxia and one of them passing away. I know the Tánaiste is familiar with the case of Craig Coady. I normally do not personalise stories in here but he spoke about this quite openly on Red FM in Cork on Tuesday.”
“I am not asking anybody to comment on the process itself as I know we have to respect it, but is it possible that the review committee can be brought forward and convened as quickly as possible to see this through one way or another because of the mental trauma, anguish and emotion? Many people travelled up on Tuesday.”
“I do not expect the Minister to intervene or comment on that specific case, and we have to respect the process, but I am sure the Minister will agree that as part of a wider strategy, we need to inculcate that wider ecosystem where patients get access to this care upfront and early access to drugs, where needed.”
“Last week, I was at a conference with the Minister and the EU Commissioner. We discussed various topics, including healthcare and the development of a life science strategy in Ireland. I know it is something that he and the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, have worked intensively on.”
“It was remiss of me not to welcome members of the Alzheimer Society of Ireland. I am struggling to see through the glare of the glass. I can see a Limerick man, Kevin Quaid, up there. It is not too often that a Cork man would welcome a Limerick man but I welcome Kevin. I can also see Siobhán. I think Andy Heffernan was there as well.”
“I have asked many parliamentary questions on this over the past few years. Very little has changed. The only thing that gives me hope is that the company has since met the CPU and submitted a commercial offer that remains under consideration. I am not asking for special treatment for any drug.”
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“I am not asking anybody to comment on the process itself as I know we have to respect it, but is it possible that the review committee can be brought forward and convened as quickly as possible to see this through one way or another because of the mental trauma, anguish and emotion? Many people travelled up on Tuesday. One girl made a ten-hour round trip from Bantry in hope and expectation. Unfortunately, we have created these campaigns because the system is broken. The Tánaiste said that himself back in 2017. It is going to be Groundhog Day. I have hope that with the review the Minister has commenced this will become a relic of the past. I sincerely hope so. In the here and now I am begging for that review committee to be brought forward as urgently as possible.”
“Imagine being the father of two boys who have Friedreich's ataxia and one of them passing away. I know the Tánaiste is familiar with the case of Craig Coady. I normally do not personalise stories in here but he spoke about this quite openly on Red FM in Cork on Tuesday. He went home that evening and his son asked him if they had got the drug. Imagine telling your son that unfortunately the answer was "Not yet", only for him to turn around and say "Dad, it's okay if we don't get the drug because at least if I die I'll meet Rory". It is extremely upsetting for many people and, as I said, I do not normally personalise things, but this has been referred to a rare diseases technology review committee which is due to meet in the next few weeks. I am pleading for that to be done as expeditiously as possible.”
“It was remiss of me not to welcome members of the Alzheimer Society of Ireland. I am struggling to see through the glare of the glass. I can see a Limerick man, Kevin Quaid, up there. It is not too often that a Cork man would welcome a Limerick man but I welcome Kevin. I can also see Siobhán. I think Andy Heffernan was there as well. I welcome them all.”
“I do not expect the Minister to intervene or comment on that specific case, and we have to respect the process, but I am sure the Minister will agree that as part of a wider strategy, we need to inculcate that wider ecosystem where patients get access to this care upfront and early access to drugs, where needed. I am sure the last thing we will be encouraging here is more cohorts of patients having to come and bare their soul, either in the audiovisual room or outside the gates of Leinster House. I am sure he will agree that this needs to change.”
“Last week, I was at a conference with the Minister and the EU Commissioner. We discussed various topics, including healthcare and the development of a life science strategy in Ireland. I know it is something that he and the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, have worked intensively on. We met with people in healthcare, pharmaceuticals and industry, as well as patient advocates. There will be an important meeting of the HSE drugs group next Tuesday, which will discuss Skyclarys, and recommend it, hopefully, for approval for reimbursement.”
“Like I said, nine other European countries have approved that drug apart from the United States and a few other countries internationally. When are we going to step up to the plate with drugs like Skyclarys for Friedreich's ataxia patients? I know the Minister of State has constituents of her own and it is close to her heart.”
“I am not asking for special treatment. I have spoken consistently in the House about systems change. I hope to God the review the Minister commissioned brings the systems change I would like to see. Dozens of other countries do this in a better way than we do. We can continue to put up the front that we are one of the best at negotiating and we get the best price and the best value for drugs, but ultimately as a society we have to ask ourselves at what cost. Unfortunately, in this case it is at the cost of lives. I made a comment about the Skyclarys campaign. I know the Minister of State has to be careful what she says because it is due before the drugs group. I again make the case that these people just want a hearing as expeditiously as possible.”
“I have asked many parliamentary questions on this over the past few years. Very little has changed. The only thing that gives me hope is that the company has since met the CPU and submitted a commercial offer that remains under consideration. I am not asking for special treatment for any drug. These are all subject to commercial sensitivity. I am asking for fairness. This process started in January 2023, so we are here three and a half years later. They should be given a final response one way or another. That is all I ask for, good, bad or indifferent at this stage. People need to be put out of their misery. We can go on about the savings achieved in that timeline because this drug was not made available. That is probably because people have died because of the lack of access to it, truth be told. Those are the facts.”
“The Leas-Cheann Comhairle and the Minister of State will know that we are working with Friedreich’s ataxia patients who are undergoing a similar process regarding reimbursement of the drug Skyclarys, which, I understand, will be deal with by the drugs group shortly. Still, here we are again. How many more patients' groups or cohorts of people will have to plead for much-needed access to quality drugs?”
“There will be a litany of reasons given as to why it has taken this long to get to this point. Ultimately, the drugs group and the HSE senior management team have decided not to reimburse the drug. Over the past few years, this Government and that which preceded it have approved more of these rare disease drugs than was the case over the previous decade. In the past three years, more of them have been approved than ever before. That is down to money. I am not asking for extra money. I am not trying to bankrupt the HSE, blow its budget or to do any of the other things I am being accused of. What I am asking for is a fairer apportionment of the existing drugs budget in this country.”
“I commend the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, regarding the review she instigated. To be fair, she put her money where her mouth is. I look forward to that review being completed. I believe it has gone out to tender and will happen by the end of this year. Nevertheless, here we are again. I do not want to hear that what is happening in this instance is the fault of the drug company involved, the HSE or the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics, NCPE. That drug was approved by the EMA in 2022 and an application in respect of it was made in January 2023. Fast forward three and a half years, and people still do not have access to a cancer drug that could save their lives and that is widely available in other European countries. Here we are again, talking about Ireland being behind the curve.”
“The consultants in question also highlighted that similar drugs are available to other men with similar prostate cancer conditions, which just deepened the inequitable situation whereby some people were able to avail of drugs while others were prevented from doing so. The Minister of State is probably fed up with me coming in here looking for various drugs to be reimbursed. In that context, this drug is available in ten other European countries. I just checked my phone and discovered that it is available in France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Greece, Spain, Germany and Great Britain. It is not just big countries, because Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and Slovenia have made it available. I am here again beating the same drug.”
“That recommendation went forward to the drugs group, which followed through with its decision on the basis that it believed the therapy does not represent optimal use of limited HSE resources. That negative recommendation went forward to the HSE senior management team, which, as one would expect following a negative recommendation from the two subcommittees under it, followed through with its own refusal. In the period that followed, 40 specialist consultants in oncology and radiology wrote a letter to the then chief executive of the HSE, Bernard Gloster, pleading with him to make the drug available to men suffering with prostate cancer. It has the potential to prolong their lives and has been described as a significant breakthrough.”
“I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor, for coming in to take this matter, which relates to the drug Pluvicto. This drug is for men suffering with prostate cancer. It was granted European Medical Agency, EMA, approval back in 2022. The HSE received an application for reimbursement on 9 January 2023. A rapid review was commenced shortly thereafter, on 10 February 2023. It was decided in March 2023 that a full higher technical assessment, HTA, was required in order to assess the efficacy of the drug. That assessment took the best part of 15 months to complete. A final HTA was completed in August 2024, when it was recommended that Pluvicto not to be reimbursed.”
“It is pivotal that, particularly the future public funding of capital projects as part of the scheme that I mentioned with the €135 million, a portion of that funding should be ring-fenced specifically to cater for the needs of children with special needs who are struggling to either access childcare, afterschool care or whatever the case may be.”
“There are many people either taking reduced working hours or trying to juggle work by working from home and having the demands of childcare placed on that is quite difficult. Again, some credence or scrutiny should be given to that request that it would be recognised as an essential economic infrastructure and resource it if the Government is going to make that commitment. My final point is in relation to special needs education in the whole area of childcare. There is only a handful of childcare facilities across the country that deals specifically with children whether they are diagnosed or yet to be diagnosed in terms of early intervention and so on.”
“I hope to have a meeting with the Minister in the coming weeks in relation to this application. I am just hopeful that it will be viewed positively because for a relatively little return of that €135 million budget that she has over the next while, we could see real delivery of up to 150 places in the village of Glanmire. I reference Cork Chamber which we get frequent briefings from. It has asked persistently that childcare would be recognised as essential economic infrastructure. When I look around my own constituency, there are people I know of my own age who are struggling to access childcare place. The necessity and importance that should be placed on childcare is obvious.”
“There are many people moving in from different areas and working in multinationals in nearby Little Island and the city. When I canvassed the doors in the recent local elections, and indeed going back to my election campaign in 2024, I will be honest with the Minister of State, there were issues around migration, the cost of living and the usual issues that we debate frequently in this House, but one of most the prevalent issues was access to childcare for those young families. I am here at 12.50 a.m. to make the case for Glanmire. It is a very large area in the east part of the city with 20,000 people. I speculate that if we do not see this opened, all we are going to see is more and more people going into the likes of Mayfield and further afield into the city and city centre to access childcare. I am here to make the case.”
“I wish to speak specifically about one such submission that was made on behalf of the people of Glanmire. This was done without identifying the property by a private building owner who has full planning permission for up to 150 childcare places. He is willing to sell the unit. He is willing to rent. The unit just needs to be kitted out, which would take approximately two to three months. It is something that could be delivered fairly quickly. The building owner is quite open to doing this with the State. When I read through the criteria, I was enthused by it because I know this can be delivered quickly. We are still awaiting an outcome or decision on that. I want to speak about the area of Glanmire where I live. It has predominantly young families. It is a suburban environment.”
“I have experienced it in my constituency where it is difficult to get baby rooms for a whole litany of reasons. The reason I came in here tonight was to speak specifically about the State-led early learning and childcare capital programme, which the Minister announced a number of months ago. When I initially heard that announcement to €135 million over the lifetime of this Government, I was enthused. I brought a number of projects to the Department. Many of them are still being scrutinised. None of them has received a final response regarding if they are going delivered this year, next year or in three years’ time. I was initially enthused by that announcement. I understand that is part of a programme where we are targeting 800 places by the end of 2027 through that programme.”
“Glanmire is the only village that was named out of four or five villages in my constituency where closures actually happened in the past 12 months. I would like to place that on the record because the rest is not factual. That said, that issue actually had a potential resolution, which I negotiated with the childcare provider and a nearby school and they sought not to proceed with that. Again, as I said, it is inaccurate to suggest that there are wholesale closures in Cork North-Central. It is not true. That said, it is generally recognised that there is a shortfall of 40,000 places nationwide. There is no point in belying that fact. It is it is true and it is difficult, as I said, particularly for younger children under the age of one.”
“It is early for some people. On a genuine level, I am actually happy. I listened to people from Independent Ireland just before they exited the Chamber listing villages where, allegedly, closures of childcare facilities have happened in the past while. I think one was actually accurate. The rest of the villages were just thrown into the debate because it sounded good. That is not to say there are not problems in this area; there 100% are. It is not to say there is not a shortfall of places because there are. Trust me: I have been that parent with three kids under five looking for childcare and it is incredibly difficult living in an area like Glanmire, which is suburban. There are lots of young families.”
“I want to raise with the Taoiseach once again the issue of rare diseases. It is something on which we have made considerable progress in recent months. We had the very effective campaign run by Senator Costello and others on the reimbursement of givinostat. On foot of this, the Minister has also ordered an end-to-end review on drug reimbursement as a whole. These are very much welcome. In relation to comments made by a member of the NCPE over a week ago on RTÉ radio, does the Taoiseach think is appropriate that a member of the NCPE was on the airwaves disagreeing with the Minister's direction, insofar as he admitted he was against an early access scheme? Is there an update on the next drugs group meeting? Ordinarily it is on the second Tuesday of every month. Is there any possibility of bringing the meeting forward?”
“He is supposed to serve the State and implement the policies this Government decides are worthy of implementation. If the Minister heard the interview, what is her opinion on it? If she has not, I encourage her to listen to it. Does she think it is appropriate that somebody would express an opinion contrary to what the Government has decided to do?”
“Another Thursday and another question on rare diseases. The Minister might want to answer this. Last Sunday, I was on my way to the Cork-Offaly match and I heard an interview between Paul Cunningham and a member of the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics, NCPE. To say I was very disappointed with what I heard would be an understatement. I raised it at the health committee yesterday with Department of Health officials and the HSE. The programme for Government is explicit. It contains a provision for an early access scheme. The Minister has said it is something she is going to progress over the lifetime of the Government. The political class has endorsed it, as has the Department of Health, but for some reason somebody on the NCPE thinks they can have a contrarian opinion. The last time I checked that person was a civil servant.”
“Whether they like it or not, or whether they were handed a mess or not, they have a statutory obligation and a need to come clean with that and to give people what they are entitled to, which is safe drinking water.”
“They spent a lot of money on their houses. I have already outlined the deficit in services, but at the same time it is not too much to ask that the residents get direct updates from Irish Water. They are coming to representatives like me to get updates or they are approaching fellas as they see them who are doing these remedial works and they are getting little tidbits information when they need something. If you are without water for the best part of a year, the very least that Irish Water should be doing for those people is giving them clear information. My final point is about the statutory requirement. This is happening in hundreds of locations across the country.”
“Tell us what specific interventions it is making because I received that broad strokes answer of it doing remedial works and scoping. but it is not telling us the fine detail of what it is doing, bit by bit. Irish Water is saying there are remedial works currently under way. Tell us when they will be done. When will we have a timeline for when that initial phase will be done? From what Irish Water is saying, it will see how successful the short-term interventions are. Depending on the degree of success, it might do another longer term intervention. Tell us what that is as well. Tell us what the criteria is. Tell us the standard. Tell us what the threshold is for making that decision. Most fundamentally, Courtbrack is a lovely rural village to live. A lot of people have moved out there from the city in particular.”
“I thank the Minister of State. That is more or less the same answer I got in all of these emails so it is not surprising. The Minister of State knows the score and I know the score. Most people here know the standard of responses we get from Irish Water. I do not think it is too much to ask on behalf of residents, especially if the Minister will make representations on this and I will talk to him myself about it, what specific remedial works are being referenced? The Minister of State read in the answer that Irish Water will carry out remedial works. Tell us what they are. Will it screen the water? Will it add more chemicals? Will it fix pipes? Will it lay new pipes? Is there a problem with manganese, like there is in other parts of the city?”
“I am totally despondent at this stage because it is happening for 15 years. Raw sewage is being pumped into a nearby landowner's field. Whether Irish Water likes it or not, it has a statutory responsibility. It is failing to adhere to that. If the State does not do it, I encourage people up and down the country to meet Irish Water in the courts and make sure it is responsible for enforcing that statutory obligation it has. I am sorry for the rant since the Minister of State has responsibility for special education but I get that he gets this frustration as well and not just from my part of the country.”
“If it is not meeting its statutory obligations, it is incumbent on the Minister to intervene. That is not just in the case of Courtbrack - it is in dozens and dozens of locations across the country. I do not want to be parochial about it but in my own constituency, the wastewater situation in Carrignavar sees raw sewage seeping into the river. It is three times overloaded. We were told it would be seven to ten years, at best, before it gets an upgrade. There are big HGV lorries and tankers going through a new housing estate in Whitechurch just to service the existing requirement. Guess what? We will zone more land in the next development plan for more houses without having an adequate water supply in Whitechurch. Knockraha is an old chestnut of mine and is in my parish.”
“It is said it is below par and the conditions they would set. I do not understand why they would take charge of it and not compel the developer at the time to stump up before they took charge of it to improve the facility that was there. That is one thing I would like answered. I know the Minister of State probably does not have that answer. I know the Minister of State has responsibility for special education and, God love him, he is in here answering questions about water. I know the statutory responsibility for the provision of water, be it operational, infrastructure or servicing, lies with Uisce Éireann and not with the Minister himself. I am not the first person to come in here cribbing about the quality of water or the conduct of Irish Water but there is a statutory obligation on it to provide water.”
“People are spending €400,000 and €500,000 on new houses. They do not really have broadband. It is improving but it is still behind where it should be. You cannot get a phone signal except via the Internet, so it is a chicken-and-egg situation. There is light at the end of the tunnel with that because they have been told broadband will be provided by a certain period of time. They have absolutely no faith whatsoever in the service provision from Irish Water or when they will have a safe drinking water supply. They have been on a boil water notice for some time. I know the Minister of State will tell me in his response that it predates Irish Water and it inherited this. The key question I have is why in Christ's name did Irish Water take charge of this when it knew - I have it here in the various emails - the water plant was problematic?”
“I realise this is the third Topical Issue out of five relating to Irish Water. I cannot say I am surprised, although they are different issues. I feel obliged to come here this evening to relay the concerns of the residents of Courtbrack, outside Blarney. There is an issue happening with their water supply for some time. I have all of the emails here from Irish Water. There are pages and pages of them and it thanks me for my representation and hopes it has provided clarity and answered all the queries of the residents. Nothing could be further from the truth . Somewhere, buried beneath all of those pages, there are little bits of information. The reality here is people want to know when they will have a safe drinking water supply at home. I know the Minister of State will be familiar with Courtbrack.”
“She has met the families who are at the core of it. She said that the whole thing here is to provide hope. I know she has children. I also have children. Most people in this Chamber today have children. I always put myself in the position of their parents when they are fighting for these medicines and treatments. We would do anything for our children. Everybody in here would. We cannot blame the parents who are involved in these campaigns for doing the same. All the eggs are in the basket of this review. I hope there will be a positive outcome in the next six to nine months that gives people real hope.”
“We lobbied for a drug called patisiran at the time and we were successful in that. However, as I said at the start, I think it is dehumanising, whether it is amyloidosis, Friedreich's ataxia or Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It is dehumanising that we put people on that platform. I call it Groundhog Day. As I said to the Minister's colleague Deputy Aird when he first approached me about a constituent of his, this is just going to be repeated. All of the eggs are in the basket of this review. When this review is done, it will probably be the last attempt at a review for the next five or ten years. I really do hope it is meaningful and thorough. I will leave it on a positive note. I complimented the Minister at the start. She has gone above and beyond. She has met people privately in a personal capacity.”
“I acknowledge that we have reimbursed the bones of 50 drugs, give or take, over the last three years, which was a dramatic increase on the previous decade. However, it must also be said that only 30% of all EMA-approved drugs in Europe are available here, compared with an EU average of 45% or thereabouts. Even on that 15%, if we could just get ourselves on a par with our European counterparts we would be setting the bar quite high. I would like to see that happen. The reason I became involved in rare diseases six years ago is that I met a constituent and supporter of mine who was diagnosed with a disease called amyloidosis. It was a very rare genetic disease that predominately affected people in Donegal. This poor man below in Cork, due to his genetic history, was unfortunately diagnosed with it. That is how I became involved with it.”
“Probably more often, drug manufacturers are to blame. That needs to be acknowledged. It also needs to be acknowledged that many manufacturers do not want to come here not just because it is a small market but because they know they are going to feed into a system that will, as was alluded to earlier, take between five and 800 days in going through a HTA predominantly and a reimbursement process that is not fit for purpose. I do not blame them if they go to Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. We are not talking here about France, Italy and big countries. We understand why manufacturers go to those bigger markets, but there are other smaller countries across Europe which have a higher proportion of reimbursed drugs than we do. That is a fact. The number increased recently.”
“Schemes like that need to be looked at because the fundamental thing here is to try to get medicines to people as quickly as possible. However, my concern is that the argument of the rare disease drugs and the new cancer drugs is getting lost in that €4 billion. The new drugs budget typically ranges from between €20 million and €50 million per annum over the last few years. I am saying it and nobody has contradicted me. If the Minister has evidence to the contrary, I would like to see it or hear it. That represents less than 1% of the total drugs budget and for me that is not a meaningful apportionment of the existing drugs funding that is there. If clarity could be brought to me on that, I would appreciate it. I wish to speak about the delays. Yes, the HSE is to blame for some of the delays.”
“That did cut some of the waiting times in comparison with other medicines. The biggest delay in the system is the health technology assessment, HTA, and the negotiation piece, and there is nothing to stop us having that negotiation piece while people are accessing medicines. That can happen retrospectively and that also needs to be looked at as part of any review. It happens in other countries. There is also the possibility of burden-sharing and risk-sharing with drugs. Again, I hope that will feed into the review. Many other countries do it. If a drug is effective, then a company can get reimbursed. If a drug is provided and it is not effective, the company gets a reduced amount or does not get reimbursed at all.”
“I will not give the Minister a lecture about it because the review will be the review and she will have all the professionals in the country feeding into it. I do hope it differs from Mazars and that it provides a meaningful review and not something tokenistic. Mazars was the provision of an online transparency tracker and that was kind of it. If it is tokenistic like that, then unfortunately it will not have my support. However, I am optimistic because the Minister has approached this in a very forthright manner and, as such, I hope this will be a fruitful review. I get very frustrated listening to people from within the Department of Health appearing on radio and TV justifying delays. As the Minister rightfully said, in the case of givinostat, she was able to knock heads together, reduce timelines and get people around the table.”
“It solely and exclusively dealt with transparency. It has achieved an awful lot in that regard, but the challenge is around the process. Back in 2021, I published a Bill which would provide a separate pathway, like other people have referenced here. I do not think any system - I referenced this when I was on "The Claire Byrne Show" recently - that assesses a cough syrup or a medicine for migraines should be the same one that is used for these high-tech drugs. It makes no sense. The implementation of a quality threshold per quality-adjusted life-year added is €45,000. We know these drugs are going to cost in excess of that. Again, adherence to that in the assessment needs to be reviewed.”
“I am not the most religious person in the world but I am saying prayers every night before I go to bed in relation to the Skyclarys drug, which, despite what was said earlier, will be at the next drugs group meeting in July. There is also an attempt to bring that meeting forward. It is incredibly difficult. I am encouraged by the Minister's words on this review when she stated that: The aim of this work is clear: to identify where delays arise, where processes can be streamlined, and how we can ensure that decisions are made as efficiently and transparently as possible, while maintaining the necessary rigorous clinical and value assessments. That is fine. That is good. We have already had the transparency piece answered by Mazars. Mazars was a bit of a letdown for me and for many other people involved in the campaigns over the years.”
“The heartbreaking stories of those families and individuals such as Craig Coady and Emily Felix have been referenced here, as have those of many people we have brought into the House. What those people have to go through is dehumanising in a way. They have not had the best luck in the world with the disease they were diagnosed with, and to compound that further we have a system that unfortunately nearly encourages them to go on "Prime Time", "The Claire Byrne Show" and come in here and bare their souls to us and to the nation. To me that is fundamentally wrong, but, nonetheless, they felt they had to do it. I am heartened in the last few weeks with the progress on givinostat, as I have said.”
“This was a programme for Government commitment, as she alluded to in her speech and it is something that I and colleagues in my party have long asked for. We chased, harassed and harried our previous colleague, Stephen Donnelly, in relation to such a review and could not get it over the line. I genuinely give the Minister honest praise for that. It is appreciated by the families concerned at the centre of these campaigns. I do not want to repeat a lot of what was said. We all have constituency clinics and meet patient groups and people who have these rare diseases. They rank amongst the hardest stories I have listened to in my seven years up here. Many people will be familiar with Friedreich's ataxia, which I know the Minister obviously cannot speak about today in any great detail.”
“I think it was five weeks ago the Tánaiste suggested we do these statements and I commend him for that. I thank the Minister for being here. We have had many a discussion over the 18 months since the Minister was appointed. I wish to start by commending her. She has showed an awful lot of interest in this area since she has taken up office; far more, than many of her predecessors of the ten or 15 years prior, I might add. I commend her for that. The news of the review was kind of lost last week with the whole reimbursement or the positive recommendation of givinostat, which was obviously very welcome. It is not fully there but it is a positive recommendation nonetheless. What got lost in that was that the Minister had started this end-to-end review.”
“We all know the great work done in our maternity wards across the country. I would like to thank all of the doctors, nurses, midwives and consultants who provide care for women across the country. My wife gave birth to our three children in the maternity ward in CUH and received the best of care. It has come to my attention that for some reason one of the State's four tertiary maternity hospitals serving the south of Ireland, CUH, does not have a dedicated consultant in maternal medicine to manage complex medical conditions in pregnancy. Is there a plan for funding and recruitment to establish such a service or post? Can the Tánaiste bring this matter to the attention of the Minister for Health and HSE?”
“A lot of exciting things are happening with this project on this site, but they are all going to be held up because we are waiting for the school. Nothing else can happen until the school has initiated. I can only make the case for my constituency, as we all do here for our constituencies. This school will be the largest Gaelcholáiste in the country when it is built. That is at a time when officials in the Department would tell us that numbers in Gaelscoileanna normally do not exceed 600 or 700. This school could easily cater for 1,200 students, such is the demand.”
“The Department of public expenditure needs to talk to the Department of education and problems need to be worked through. The Department has to stay within the budget but, at the same time, this is not a problem that just emerged. While it is fair enough that the project only got planning last year, as I said, the prefabs have been there for 25 or 30 years. This build is largely to replace those prefabs. We have another good story on the site in question. The people who established the school own the land around it. The Minister for the Gaeltacht, Deputy Calleary, is looking at turning an old building into a cultúrlann and have it as a real Irish-language hub in the centre of Glanmire. It would largely meet the needs of the Irish language community in Cork city.”
“Unfortunately, I do not have my date. I get that we have invested an awful lot in infrastructure and education over the last few years. That is undeniable. I was struck by a couple of phrases the Minister of State used, including "affordability" and "value for money". We have all been in this House long enough to know that the longer we wait to do these projects, they more inflated the price becomes given the way the current market is. If we leave this another year, it could easily add another 10%, if not more, to the price of this school. Unfortunately, I think we are going to be waiting much longer than a year, judging by what the statement the Minister of State read out. I get that there is a €700 million overspend in the budget for the Department of education.”