Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the work they do in their individual areas. I know they are extremely committed and dedicated to the projects in which they are involved and helping patients who have these difficult medical conditions. For the record, I will correct a comment from earlier this morning. My figures were correct. My understanding is that of the 148 orphan drugs, 133 have been approved in Germany, 68 have been approved in England and only 53 are currently reimbursed in Ireland. The HSE indicated my figures were exaggerated but they are not. These are the actual figures from a report I got. There are 53 reimbursed in Ireland, compared with 116 in France, 133 in Germany, 84 in Italy and 75 in Spain. Those are the figures. The other matter is the timescale. My understanding of orphan medication is that from the date of the initial application to the final HSE decision, it is an average of 23.6 months. They are the figures I got from a report I sourced. In the period 2012 to 2017, some 15 of the 45 applications made have been successful.