Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and I have a very strong working relationship. I would be surprised if, in any budget discussions, a Minister for expenditure and a Minister for Health have ever been on the same page. We have, however, a very good working relationship.

On new medicines, and this is linked to rare diseases as well, we are putting in place a new rare disease strategy. Advocacy groups such as Rare Diseases Ireland are very involved. We are pulling people into this. Something we need for that is funding for new medicines, orphan drugs. We intend going after that in a very hard-nosed manner by finding savings in that €3.2 billion figure. The work has already started and will be governed under the productivity task force. I will bring a memo to the Government shortly on that productivity task force to lay out exactly what we are going to do.

I acknowledge the ongoing tireless work on orphan drugs and rare diseases. We are acting on that and putting a strategy in place. We will have the advocacy and patient groups involved in that. I am determined to find savings within the €3.2 billion and we will reinvest that into making new drugs - some incredible medicines - available to adults and children in Ireland.