Mr. David Delaney:

I might respond to the first part of the Senator's questions and then hand over to Mr. O'Brien in respect of the joint pacts. In terms of the journey, it takes two to tango. While we may think we are very far down the line as Europeans, through Commissioner Šefovi's hard work and proposals, it revolves around what the other negotiating parties in London believe is the solution and what is workable for them. The Commissioner and his team mad a big step forward with the proposals. On the question of a timeline, I was in Brussels last week and spoke to a number of stakeholders. They have a tight legislative agenda in the parliament, like the Members in Ireland. Given that a number of the Commissioner's proposals would require a legislative amendment, it is almost impossible for me to guess on the timeline, but when I said I was optimistic but cautious earlier, my caution comes from the fact that time is ticking away. There is very little time left before the end of the year when the current waivers, derogations and grace periods expire, especially when it comes to the non-paper perhaps being discussed or negotiated with the UK based on its set of priorities and concern for the welfare of patients in Northern Ireland. I imagine that would take two to three weeks. The Commissioner's team has told us that it could perhaps take three weeks. Hopefully, we will get a chance to engage with him and the team again. Perhaps that will be in three weeks, but I am concerned that some of these changes require legislation, and as the Senator will be aware, the timeline is a how-long-is-a-piece-of-string issue. I picked up concerns from a number of MEPs last week that they are ready, willing and able to give their advice and data and to look at and scrutinise the legislation, but we are a number of weeks away from the legislation appearing in the European Parliament and the Members there having the opportunity to give their opinion on it. I will hand over to Mr. O'Brien to respond on the joint pacts piece.

On the third point the Senator made, in respect of international procurement and perhaps learning some of the benefits from procuring vaccines internationally as a collective in Europe, the point on the vaccines is well made. Vaccine procurement has been a great success for small countries such as Ireland. However, in terms of the day-to-day generic buying of similar over-the-counter medicines, a fast moving, flowing, borderless and efficient supply chain is already moving these medicines around Europe. Ireland has some of the best value prices, representing some of the best value that the HSE is saving year on year, compared to previous years when it was paying relatively high prices for unpatented medicines. In terms of the international procurement of generic medicines, the day-to-day medicines, there really is not a need, and in fact, it could be quite inefficient if Ireland was to join, say, a tendering system for basic antibiotics or other medicines. Fortunately, and I will lead into the joint pacts piece, our members moved significantly away from joint pacts over the past few years to Irish stand-alone pacts or Irish pacts with Belgian, French or other European entities. We invested millions of euros in moving away from the Irish-UK pact. We are already benefiting from joint pacts. I will hand over to Mr. O'Brien, who can add some colour to that.