Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for their time. It is a hugely important issue. The combination of some miraculous scientific breakthroughs with the eye-watering associated costs is going to pose some big questions for us as a society. We seem to be getting to the stage where, with enough money, one can cure or treat a phenomenally wide and growing range of chronic diseases and conditions, so we are going to have to figure this stuff out.

At a national accounts level, are there projections for the likely costs into the future of drug budgets? We know that treatments are becoming more advanced and that there are some incredibly expensive ones. They do not have to be orphan drugs and may include new treatments which can turbo charge a person's blood, stick it back into them and let their immune system heal them.

Are there projections for the kind of money that Ireland would need to be spending in five or ten years time, relative to what we are spending now, to provide to Irish citizens access to the emerging world of orphan drugs and breakthrough therapies?