Mr. Peter Murphy:

Again, we have had a limited discussions with the Department. Before Christmas, we attended a briefing session held by the Department, the HSE and the Irish Medicines Board on the Bill. During that session, I raised the issue of AEDs. We also of course have met the Minister of State, Deputy White, on the issue in January and outlined our concerns to him. At the time, the Minister of State was quite adamant that the Bill is, as he described, merely a framework to establish substitution.

We believe it should be a lot more than that. There is no reason why it has to be just a framework. As we have heard, there is strong evidence which I do not think is generally in dispute. We do not see the value in delegating such an important power to the Irish Medicines Board when such strong evidence exists. In basic terms, why should the safety, well-being and health of people with epilepsy have to depend on the discretion of the Irish Medicines Board? That is where we think this committee comes into play. There is an opportunity here to do the right thing, to enshrine people's rights within the legislation through a relatively simple amendment. It is one exception and there are no flood-gates.

We can take the Irish Medicines Board out of the equation, as well as all the confusion, by having an amendment to the legislation. It may not be administratively neat or exactly what the Minister wants but there is a lot at stake here. Surely the Bill's objective is not simply to be administratively neat. Surely the objective should be to do the best for public health.

When we met the Minister in January, his parting comment was that the Bill was intended to serve the public health of the country. Of course it does in reducing the cost of medicines and enabling substitution where there are no difficulties - that is serving the public interest. However, the interests of 37,000 plus people in Ireland will not be served if the Bill goes through exactly as it is. That cannot be forgotten.