Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to come back in on the issue of the price negotiation with the Benelux countries. Germany is able to make drugs available within 120 days, although I know it is a different process.

Obviously, Germany is a bigger country with more patients with a rare disease. In Ireland there may be as few as 20 people who need a particular treatment whereas in Germany there might be 2,000 such people. If the Benelux countries worked together at price negotiations then the system could progress better and negotiations with pharmaceutical companies could get up and running at an early stage so that drugs are available faster and at a competitive price, like the way Germany does it. Is this being examined at all from the point of view of the six countries that are part of the BeNeLuXA initiative?