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 will seek that representatives of the FAI come in to address the concerns I have raised this evening. I hope to have the support of some of the committee members present here tonight. My overarching concern is that given that we entrust our children to large organisations like this, it is paramount that their safety is ensured. I will not stray into the realm of individual accusations because I do not have any information pertaining to any individual allegations. I am exclusively concentrating on the FAI's own safeguarding policy which the Minister of State has said his Department is satisfied with. I ask him to ask his officials go back and read it because I quoted extensively from it. It states specifically that no specific allegation is required in the case of any sexual allegations. It is there in black and white.”
“I start by thanking the Minister of State for coming in to address this matter himself. It was remiss of me not to preface my comments by saying that if anybody has been affected by these issues, they should follow the formal complaints procedure that the FAI has encouraged people to come forward with, details of which the Minister of State has outlined. I do not raise this matter lightly. Many of us here have children. I quoted extensively from a series of correspondence that I obtained through an individual. The correspondence clearly demonstrates that this was known nine months prior to the "RTÉ Investigates" programme. That in itself is damning. I have written to the sports committee about this and it will be discussed in private session tomorrow.”
“If individuals within the FAI in May 2023 conceded that they were aware of stuff behind the scenes, wanting to discuss privately offline the potential historical complaints of these individuals in management and the former chief executive conceding that they had to assume more of this could be out there, surely that is concerning. Nobody and no script from any Department will tell me that those conversations by their very nature do not point to the fact that people in the FAI had concerns covered by their own safeguarding documents. My only concern is to ensure that safeguarding in a large organisation like the FAI, to which we entrust our children and young people, is followed.”
“This did not happen until nearly a year after the individuals first came to attention. In addition, the FAI's safeguarding policy also states that individuals should always inform Tusla when they have reasonable grounds for concern that a child may have been, is being or is at risk of being abused or neglected. In addition, it is not necessary for the individual to prove that abuse has occurred. All that is required is that the individual have reasonable grounds for concern. Reasonable grounds include "any concern about any potential sexual abuse". Did this happen in this case? Was the child protection officer informed? Was the safeguarding officer within the FAI consulted? Having seen the evidence, I think it is fair to ask the FAI if it reached the threshold required by its own policies.”
“However, for an organisation such as the FAI not to act on this matter, even in the absence of an official complaint or allegation, is extremely worrying and, if I am being brutally honest, it directly contradicts its child welfare and safeguarding policy, which I have a copy of with me this evening. That document explicitly states that in relation to any case of abuse, if a mandated person knows, believes or has reasonable grounds to suspect that a child has been, is being or is at risk of being abused, the mandated person must report this issue to Tusla under the Children First Act 2015. The same policy that I have here has provision for the standing-down of staff in circumstances where concerns are raised with the FAI outside a statutory authority investigation.”
“Another remarked that it was an issue "to discuss privately perhaps", but that there were "potential historical complaints of his time in management". I understand from the FAI's formal correspondence with me that it internally decided not to proceed with an investigation in 2023 as it determined that suspicions, rumours and concerns that were reflected regarding the individual in question did not come in the format of a formal complaint or allegation at that time. I am not attempting to stray into the specifics of any allegations. That is a matter for the authorities concerned.”
“Second, and crucially, despite the FAI stating publicly that it only learned of these allegations in early 2024, the FAI's former director of public relations attempted to make a protected disclosure alleging the FAI had knowledge of these issues back in May 2023. I know this because I have access to the same information as the journalist who wrote the article on 8 June. Despite the FAI claim that it had no knowledge of these concerns prior to early 2024, I can see that the former chief executive initiated a conversation internally on 4 May 2023. It is there in black and white for all to see. With the back and forth he engaged in on that day, I can see other senior officials acknowledging that they were "aware of stuff behind the scenes" in relation to this individual.”
“I appreciate the Minister coming in this evening to take this Topical Issue matter. He will be aware that earlier during the Order of Business, I raised this issue with the Taoiseach, but such is my concern about this matter that I believe it needs further deliberation. On 8 June, the Sunday Independent's Mark Tighe wrote an article entitled "FAI 'too slow' to act over allegations of former national team manager's behaviour towards female footballers". As I mentioned earlier, the article alleged a number of things, but mainly that the FAI agreed a financial settlement with its former director of public relations to keep details of his complaints from becoming public.”
“Nonetheless, can we just get on with the job of establishing the task force? If the Taoiseach can provide any clarity on that, we would appreciate it.”
“Back in February, Deputy McGrath and I raised the issue of the city task force with the Taoiseach, who confirmed that proposals were being developed and, once finalised, would be submitted to the Government for consideration. As yet, no formal announcement has been made regarding the establishment of a task force in Cork city. We are well into the term of this Government at this stage. I listened to Mr. Sean O'Driscoll this morning on my way up to Dublin. He spoke about many things the Taoiseach and I have spoken about here over the years, including getting rid of roadblocks, cutting through the malaise of planning and getting things delivered. I have concerns about what I am hearing about the task force, including its composition. I have spoken previously about the lack of political representation that is proposed to be on it.”
“This is important because the person at the centre of all these allegations was allowed to coach in the period from May 2023, when the former chief executive queried who he was, the point at which he was stood down by the association in March 2024. My concern here is safeguarding protocols and whether they were adhered to. Having seen the same evidence as that of the journalist, I have serious concerns about the FAI's actions and have written to the chair of the sport committee, the Minister for sport and the FAI to that effect. Is the Government and Sport Ireland satisfied with the time lapse between the matter being brought to the FAI's attention in May 2023 to the standing down of the coaches at the centre of this controversy in 2024?”
“On 8 June, Sunday Independent journalist Mark Tighe wrote an article with the headline, "FAI ‘too slow’ to act over allegations of former national team manager’s behaviour towards female footballers". The article alleged a number of things. The first was that the FAI agreed a financial settlement with its former director of public relations to keep details of his complaints from becoming public. The second was that despite the FAI stating publicly that it only learned of the allegations in early 2024, its former director of public relations made what he thought was a protected disclosure, alleging that it knew of these concerns in May 2023.”
“There is a medium- to long-term commitment to review the reimbursement system, and I suggest that this should be done. I am glad that commitment was given in the programme for Government. There is also a reference to early access schemes. I am asking that in the case of the 100 to 120 people nationwide who have Duchenne muscular dystrophy - they are predominantly boys - an early access scheme should be looked at. That can be done in the short term. I urge the Minister of Health to detail to the House what plans she has on that.”
“Yesterday there were protests outside the gates of Leinster House to raise awareness about Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Thankfully, the Minister of Health is here today. To be fair to the new Minister, since she assumed her role she has been very supportive in the area of rare diseases and I thank her for that. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a very degenerative disease that affects boys predominantly. They deteriorate rapidly and many are lucky to survive beyond 20 years of age. A drug, Givinostat, that is available in the UK and Northern Ireland is not available here. I understand that EMA approval was only given for it last Friday, so it is very early in the process. In the programme for Government there are two commitments.”
“It is the same with Fermoy. The people living in those properties are protected by the OPW scheme but cannot get flood insurance. I know this issue is brought up here every year. We need to look at it. If a scheme is in place, functioning and proven to work, I do not see why people cannot get insurance cover. My last point concerns the Department of public expenditure. We are talking about doing things faster, whether it is related to flooding, housing or something else. We talk about cutting through red tape and bureaucracy. This is never more true than in the case of flood relief schemes but the knowledge that schemes can be delivered expeditiously and people can be protected is the greatest relief we can give these families.”
“It was challenged through judicial review by a local voluntary environmental group. That is fine. It is part of the process but, unfortunately, that has been sitting with the Minister since 2018. It was then green-lit in 2021 and subsequently challenged. Since then, it has sat on the desk of Ministers and an environmental impact assessment is still being considered. It needs to be brought forward urgently. It will cover 290 properties and commercial businesses. I will speak more widely about insurance. I know it is not the Minister of State's brief but it is something we need to work on collectively. There has to be some provision brought before the House regarding schemes that are delivered and have been proven to work such as Mallow in Cork. The Mallow flood relief scheme has worked for a number of years without incident.”
“Despite the chaos, traffic inconvenience and all the other inconveniences, it will be a significant relief to people when it is actually delivered later this year or early next year. That said, this has gone on since 2008 or 2009. It is protecting a couple of hundred properties but during that period, Glanmire flooded three times. We were talking about this concept coming to design. We told people it was coming and that we were dealing with the council and the OPW but the village flooded three times during that period. That requires radical overhaul. Unfortunately, it is the same for the scheme in Blackpool. There was flooding in Blackpool on multiple occasions in 2010, 2012 and 2013. The scheme proposed for Blackpool is caught up in an environmental impact assessment.”
“I will pick up where Deputy John Connolly left off and talk about a number of schemes in Cork. It frustrates the life out of people that they are waiting ten, 12 or 15 years for these schemes, from concept through to design and being built. I accept that it is not straightforward. As Deputy Connolly noted, there are concerns about special areas of conservation and inland fisheries and a myriad of environmental concerns need to be addressed that are covered under EU directives, so we have to respect those. At the same time, any process that allows this to rumble on for ten, 12 or 15 years needs a radical overhaul. I live a couple of kilometres from Glanmire. The scheme for Glanmire has been going since 2009 or 2010. Thankfully, we are in the last year of it.”
“The Irish Examiner published an article last year, which noted it was taking 180 days just to get a reply from the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics, NCPE. In February this year, the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association, IPHA, published three years of data showing 86% of applications exceeded the legislative timeline. In light of this, and I would appreciate a direct answer if he can, does the Tánaiste believe the HSE is adhering to these timelines and what will we do to ensure it does?”
“This week, patients with spinal muscular atrophy, SMA, came to the audiovisual room to highlight their case for equal access to treatments and drugs. As Minister for Health in 2017, the Tánaiste once described the reimbursement system we have as being in serious jeopardy. He may actually have inferred that it was broken. Every paper published since then continues to show HSE non-adherence to timelines as outlined in the Health Act. The Mazars report says the HSE was not adhering to the spirit of the legislation. Subsequently, at least four academic papers have highlighted the decision timelines for reimbursements involving health technology assessments, HTAs, have exceeded that 180 days.”
“To be fair to her, the director of services in Cork City Council very rarely makes a public comment about Government decisions like this, but she said this would have a significant effect on the prevention of homelessness in Cork. That is the reality of what we are doing.”
“I just do not understand why we are barring people from availing of it, which is effectively what we are doing. Whether we like to admit it here or not, we are doing that because a commitment was given to local authorities to go beyond the 2024 allocation and proactive local authorities such as Cork City Council and Cork County Council did exactly that. They used the scheme to its fullest extent and then they went beyond it, as per the circular, and exceeded their targets by 50%. They were permitted to do that. At that time, nobody flagged with either local authority in Cork or elsewhere that the money would affect their budget in 2025, which is what has happened. The logical step is to increase the budget for 2025 to allow people to engage with the scheme and to allow local authorities to start acquiring more properties.”
“I thank the Minister of State. I might pick up on the last point. It is interesting to hear that only 20% of the fund has been drawn down. I know that in the case of both Cork City Council and Cork County Council they have drawn down the full allocation for 2025, or committed to it. If only 20% of the funding has been drawn down, could the reallocation of the funding from other local authorities not be considered if they have not drawn it down? Does the Minister of State have figures for 2024 which show whether the full allocation was drawn down? I am interested in hearing about that. The Minister of State referred to the merits of the scheme. I do not need to be convinced of how good the scheme is; we all know the scheme works. As he outlined, it has delivered 3,300 second-hand acquisitions. It is a great scheme.”
“I would appreciate it if the Minister of State could give me an update on the resumption of the scheme, which has effectively been paused in both Cork City Council and Cork County Council.”
“It is only a matter of time before the landlords get fed up and enforce the eviction notices. More than likely, the properties will be sold privately and the tenants will have to enter emergency accommodation. We must get our act together in the coming weeks. I have spoken to the Taoiseach, the Minister for housing and the Minister for public expenditure about this and I believe a resolution is on the way, but while we wait for it to be introduced I fear that more families will not avail of the scheme and more local authorities will not be able to draw down funds for the scheme, which is unfortunately likely to lead to more families going into emergency accommodation.”
“If the scheme is to be tightened up I would prefer that to be focused on the local authorities that are not doing their job and that are letting the side down, rather than punishing local authorities like Cork City Council and Cork County Council. By any metric – be it social housing delivery, affordable housing delivery or the delivery of private homes - both Cork City Council and Cork County Council have delivered. That is patently clear from the available figures. I am deeply disappointed because, like all Deputies here, I am dealing with people in clinics weekly, many of whom are on the tenant in situ scheme and waiting for it to be unpaused, which is essentially what has happened in both Cork City Council and Cork County Council. The sale of approximately 30 properties is currently paused in both local authorities.”
“I understand why the Department of housing and the Department of public expenditure might have concerns about the way the scheme is being utilised by some local authorities, which were perhaps covering up for their own shortcomings in other areas of housing delivery and used the scheme to get out of the fix in which they found themselves. However, I can safely say that was not the case in either Cork City Council or Cork County Council where the scheme was utilised in the spirit in which it was intended, such as cases of families in danger of becoming homeless and going into emergency accommodation. Cork City Council and Cork County Council are, unfortunately, being punished because every local authority in the country has been tarred with the one brush.”
“This has been an issue for many of us across the House over the past couple of months. It has been flagged repeatedly by Government TDs as well as Opposition TDs. I would like to specifically talk about Cork city and county. Some 33 families in Cork city and around the same number in Cork county are currently in limbo. They are unsure what is happening with their applications for the tenant in situ scheme. I have seen the various pieces of correspondence between Departments and the local authorities over the past eight months. Having read that correspondence it was quite clear to me that there was permission for the local authorities to exceed their initial allocations by up to 50%. Both Cork City Council and Cork County Council have taken advantage of that and tried to progress additional applications for the tenant in situ scheme.”
“The news that reached us last night about the review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement was very welcome. Unfortunately, our attempts and those of Spain to bring our EU counterparts to this position in February of last year were frustrated. Now at least a significant number of our EU colleagues have been equally appalled at the devastation inflicted on the Palestinian people. It is not just the EU that has now finally changed tack. Both the UK and Canada in the past few days have expressed their condemnation at what is happening and indicated a firmer stance in that regard. Does the Taoiseach agree that the EU now needs to look at an immediate suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement pending that review?”
“I will add only more thing to that. I came across two families in my area that have had that publicly funded, private assessment and diagnosis of their child. They had to then go back to the CDNT or SENO, who stated that because it was a private diagnosis, it is not recognised, even though it was a publicly-funded assessment. That situation is not an isolated one. I have come across it on a few occasions. That needs to be clarified. There is no point in us publicly funding assessments in the private sector only for them not to be recognised subsequently.”
“In the coming months, we hope that a new home can be built for the Rainbow Club under the HSE capital plan. That is something all Deputies in Cork who have involvement with the charity will be pushing for, when that moment arrives. Thankfully, it has secured its site. We need to look at the Rainbow Club as the model for how to deliver therapies because the HSE clearly cannot provide that for us. I will make one last point on the assessments to be provided. The Minister mentioned an additional €10 million in funding will be provided under the current budget. I implore her to look at children who were previously assessed by a private therapist, which was paid for by the State. I ask for that to be done as an interim arrangement. I am not saying that is the optimum situation to be in but it needs to be done urgently, if it can be done again.”
“I happen to have been a director of the Rainbow Club for the past 12 months, where I have seen that more than 1,300 children can avail of a service every week. They do not require a diagnosis. If a child presents with a need of any description, or if a parent or schoolteacher has concerns, they can refer that child to the Rainbow Club in Mahon. There is no compulsion to have a diagnosis. We need to look at a model where a diagnosis is not required and not the clinical model we seem to have been focused on for far too long. The priority now needs to be on delivering therapies. As I said, 1,300 children - statistics are done every week and the number is growing - can be catered for in an environment that they are very comfortable with. Some of those children have left school places but thrive when they come to the Rainbow Club.”
“How is it I can attend a service such as the Rainbow Club in Cork, which can advertise for a physiotherapist, an SNA or a speech and language therapist, and get genuine competition for the job it is advertising, but that is not the case for the HSE? I am not sure of the latest figure in my region of Cork but the HSE is in the fiftieth or sixtieth percentile as regards vacancies for roles. I can never marry in my own head why a service such as the Rainbow Club, which is a very well-run charity run by Karen and Jon O'Mahony, can succeed but the HSE consistently struggles to hire these staff. I will spend a minute talking about the Rainbow Club as an alternative to the way we do things.”
“I will not repeat the statistics the Minister outlined, but there is a clear surge in the number of assessments of need applications that are coming through every year. We need to be grown up about the conversation that needs to be had. As a State, what we have done over the past while clearly has not worked. We now need to look to the future to see what we can do and what we can change to ensure children get the diagnosis they need and deserve and, following on from that, that we can deliver the therapies they deserve. There is something I have never understood in my six years in national politics.”
“The situation is unacceptable. Like the Minister, I spent 15 years in a classroom and delivered hours as a special education teacher from time to time. In that 15 years, I have seen things improve in terms of resources and overall funding but in what is being experienced on the ground, particularly in the area of assessments of need, things are definitely regressing. We need to put that on the record from the outset. That is generally agreed by all parties here. I fully understand the frustration of parents. Not a week goes by in our clinics when we are not dealing with parents where there is some difficulty in accessing therapies, assessments of need or some type of service, be it from the HSE or a charitable provider. That said, it also needs to be acknowledged that we are facing an unprecedented level of demand.”
“I might begin by stating how proud I am of us as a nation and of the people of Ireland for what we have done over the past three years or so in providing jobs, employment and, most importantly, safe accommodation for people from Ukraine who have fled this unjust war. I will ask the Taoiseach some specific questions. Will he speak to us on where fast-tracking EU membership for Ukraine is at or provide some kind of roadmap or timeline for how we are likely to expedite that? My second question is on the financial support promised by this country for the European Peace Facility. Initially, Hungary tried its best to frustrate that provision of funding. Will the Taoiseach give us an update on where the peace fund via the EU lies, in light of Hungary's deliberate attempts to disrupt it in the past, and where are we at with it?”
“I am not an expert in this field. I was a teacher but I am not an expert in therapies. Will the Minister of State expand on why we are prioritising OT and speech and language over physio? That is what this answer implies. The only request I ask the Minister of State to take back to the Minister, Deputy McEntee, is to give us some roadmap for full implementation of this because, as I said, most of these families have suffered the best part of a decade of no service or, at best, little service. It is important that we give them some type of light at the end of the tunnel.”
“Typically, we are in here, and I was in the Chair earlier, listening to recurring issues of not getting home help for people, or the resources or money being allocated but being unable to get the staff, but in the case of the three special schools on the initial pilot scheme, we have fully staffed them, which is welcome. The difficulty I have with the response is that it is stated we will continue to roll out the service on a phased basis. There is no end time to a phased basis. It is stated in the reply that it is commencing in 2026-2027. Are we working towards the end of the decade here? What is the target for appointing the remaining therapists? I welcome that we are prioritising OTs and speech and language therapists in particular. It is also stated in the reply that further disciplines such as physios may be included.”
“I am one of the best people to come into the House and criticise and give out about how we are implementing or not implementing things, but in fairness, in this response, it is the first time it has been clarified for me that the three special schools in Cork have been fully staffed. That is the first time I have heard that or seen it in writing. That is to be welcomed. The pilot scheme in Cork has worked if we have managed to fully staff it. Whatever about the outcomes for people availing of the service, the fact we have appointed all the therapists who were required in those three schools needs to be deemed as some bit of a success. I make that point, not in a condescending way.”
“However, can we get down to the phasing of it, how she will staff it, and whether certain roles will be prioritised, be those speech and language therapy, physio, nurses or whatever the case may be? Is there any kind of roadmap for how we are to staff it and successfully implement it in all the special schools?”
“My concern is, if we are putting therapists back into all special schools, given we have struggled to appoint staff to the three in Cork that were selected, and Cork has 14 or 15 special schools in total, what is the likelihood of us successfully staffing all those other schools if we cannot even do it successfully in the three that were selected for the pilot? In fairness, that is the concern being expressed by most parents and families in those schools that are affected. I understand the Minister for Education and Youth, Deputy McEntee, would have made statements recently about the national therapy service and how it is highlighted in the programme for Government that this scheme will be rolled out to all schools.”
“If we are allocating all the therapists to all schools, is the pilot for those that were chosen for it last year essentially scrapped and defunct at this stage? If it is, that is fine because it is merely the reality of where we are at because we are reintroducing therapists to all schools. It is important to establish on a factual basis where we are with that pilot. The difficulty we are likely to face with some of the schools that have been placed on that pilot as of last September is that the majority of them still have teams that do not have their full complement of staff. In all three cases in Cork, they have struggled to appoint the full complement of staff in the six months the pilot scheme has been up and running.”
“That said, the pilot scheme has been up and running for six or seven months at this stage. I would have advocated strongly on behalf of a school in Cork, St. Killian's Special School in Mayfield, where, after a lengthy campaign, it was successful in being allowed to procure privately the therapists it needed because it was excluded from the initial intake in the special pilot scheme. Where are we at with the pilot scheme? Given we have a commitment from Government that therapists will be reintroduced at all levels into all special schools in the country, and I understand that will most likely be done on a phased basis, where are we with the pilot with the seven or eight schools that were initially selected last year? As far as I am concerned, the pilot is surely moot at this stage.”
“I am here asking a number of questions and the Minister of State may or may not have some of the answers. It is important to raise the issue once again and to highlight the problems we are likely to encounter in advance of September and the intake of students into special schools. The Minister of State is obviously aware that there was a pilot scheme to reintroduce therapists, OT, physio, speech and language therapists, etc., into special schools, initially run in Cork and Dublin, with three special schools in Cork and five or six special schools in Dublin. It is something that at this stage is universally agreed should never have been taken out of schools in terms of the introduction of PDS and how that model has basically failed to deliver for students and families alike.”
“The one thing I would ask the Minister of State to take away to the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, tonight is to ensure that the commitments in the programme for Government are initiated now, and we are not having this conversation in two years' time again, trying to instigate them at that point.”
“The one big difficulty I have with this is that whether people in this House know it or not, we are actually overseeing the implementation of a two-tier health system by proxy. What I mean by that is I am lucky enough to have private health insurance, and there are people in this country today who, depending on their provider and the cover they have, can access these very expensive drugs. People on the public system, if those drugs are still awaiting reimbursement, cannot access those drugs and that is not a health system we should be standing over. That is why, in the programme for Government, we were happy to see the inclusion of early access programmes for certain drugs for certain cancer sufferers, and we got a commitment that the overall reimbursement process for drugs would be reviewed.”
“That needs to be embraced because with regard to the innovation that is out there, it is eye-opening to see what we can do and what we can treat. The issue I have regards the assessments. I am surprised that the Department did not make any attempt at putting its own figures with respect to the figures I quoted. The truth of the fact is it does not have them, or if it does have them it never discloses them. It is concerning to me that the Department of Health would not have access to those timelines. If the Department is going to dispute the timelines here by the EFPIA, I would like to think it has its own statistics and waiting times but it does not have them, and I find that very concerning.”
“I thank the Minister of State. I will point out a few things relative to the script she has there. The first thing is that we are spending €3 billion on drugs. That is a fact; I cannot dispute it. It is likely to be €4 billion before too long and it is going to continue to increase as the innovations in drugs and treatment continue to progress. That should be a good thing because it saves people going into hospitals or into long-term care, and it saves us by giving people the opportunity to be productive in society and partake if their ailment is identified early enough and they can get the appropriate treatment. It is just a fact that we are going to spend more and more on drugs into the future.”
“Unfortunately, for me as a public representative, it is patients in the middle who get caught out and lose time in terms of treatment and improving their life chances, extending their lives in some cases. I understand these drugs are expensive. There is nobody here expecting us to break the bank or break the State but other countries do it far better and far more efficiently than us. That has to be recognised, and we need to get to the crux of the matter. I welcome some inclusions in the programme for Government, which I might talk to the Minister of State about in the supplementary.”
“It takes the average orphan drug 710 days to get to market authorisation in Ireland. By comparison, for our EU counterparts, it is an average of 607 days. I will leave the Minister of State with these two statements. Back in 2017, the then Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, actually described this system as being broken. Predating that, the former head of the HSE, Mr. Tony O'Brien, commented that the system is producing the results it is designed to produce. What I see the system doing is essentially knocking industry and the Department of Health or the HSE into a protracted negotiation that takes somewhere between two and three years, if patients are lucky.”