Mr. Darragh O'Loughlin:

I remind Senator Burke that pharmacists did not set the price of medicines at that time either. We just received the price. Medicines were expensive, but the ESRI has shown that Irish doctors like to prescribe innovative therapies. The Senator mentioned that the downside of being an early adopter of new medicines is that it can push up the price - the price paid on medicines, not the price for the individual medicines. Historically, we have used more innovative and newer medicines here, whereas the UK has incentivised prescribers to stay with the older, cheaper medicines.