Mr. John Hennessy:

The cost of drugs and medicines to the State under the primary care reimbursement service, PCRS, schemes -the medical card scheme and the drug refund scheme - runs to approximately €1.3 billion per annum. That is considerable expenditure. Arising from considerable controversy about the differences between drug prices in Ireland and other jurisdictions in recent years, an extensive medicines management programme has been put in place. The committee may already have been briefed on this. Over the past two years progress has been made in reducing the costs to the consumer and the State to quite a significant degree-----