Mr. Robert Watt:

There is €9 billion of spend on current goods and services and approximately €6 billion of addressable spend that is brought within the ambit of the new office Mr. Quinn is leading. Professional fees across the board would be part of that and Mr. Quinn has a category council element in the team which is examining them. The drugs are a much more substantial piece, as the Deputy knows. Under the current structure that is a matter for the HSE and the Department of Health. We have volunteered the expertise of the professionals we have within the Open Government Partnership, OGP, to assist the Department of Health. Some of the contracts will be up for negotiation in the summer and we have offered to work with and assist the Department of Health with them.

We must do much better in this space. We discussed this previously and said we agreed that there is not enough generic drug substitution going on. There is much happening this year but the price we are paying for patent drugs is too high. The reference price is above the EU average and I do not know why. We are happy to work with the Department of Health and the HSE and I agree there is scope to get better value for money and we will pursue that.