Ms Anna-Karin Ulpe:

I thank the Vice Chairman for those remarks around budgets for research. I am aware that the EU has recently increased the funding for biomedical research around ME but it is extremely underfunded all across the world. It looks like they are pretty close to a breakthrough in the Open Medicine Foundation to finding a diagnostic test. My brain is too slow to explain what it is trying to do but it is something the researchers can see in blood. It looks like they are close to finding it. Of course, it would be great if governments could chip in and help fund this because keeping us sick is also a cost.

I do not know for sure if Ireland funds any biomedical research for ME but I would be surprised if that was the case. I am aware of a recent study of the financial impact of ME. It is from 2020 and members could google the financial impact of ME in Ireland to find it. They could get an idea of the costs from that. It is a pretty small study but at least it is a start.