Professor Michael Barry:

To address the point about private insurers, we have reviewed 22 cancer drugs this year. The HSE has reimbursed most of those cancer drugs this year. I know for a fact that private health insurers only cover five of those drugs. There is a new innovation in cancer called CAR T-cell therapy. We received four applications for CAR T-cell therapy this year and we approved three. Do members know how many CAR T-cell therapies are approved by private insurers? The answer is none. We can talk about drugs for rare diseases or drugs for cystic fibrosis. How many of those are covered by private insurers? None. This concept out there that the private health insurers are paying for everything and the public system pays for nothing is not right.