Mr. Patrick Burke:

Over the past four years various policy initiatives from the Department of Health and operated by the HSE have reduced the cost somewhere in the order of €1 billion. Reductions in the overall cost of the drugs that we supply to our 2 million customers, or 3.8 million if we take the other schemes into account, have been in the order of €1 billion. That has resulted from new and changing supply arrangements with the industry, the proprietary manufacturers and the generic industry. It has come from efforts to reduce individual prices and negotiations with individual companies. It has been pushed further with the introduction of the legislation this year to push out reference pricing and where there is a generic equivalent the total drugs bill is approximately €400 million. We aim to take €50 million out of half of it by the middle of next year. That will push on next year and the year after.