Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

A longer term concern of mine is where the drugs budget will go and needs to go. There are very different perspectives on that across the Government. On the one hand, this committee will discuss on a different day, and we will discuss at oral parliamentary questions tomorrow, the need for or request for any named drug that is doing fantastic new things in healthcare and the applications to be on the reimbursement system here in Ireland. We are also looking at an expanding and ageing population, which I have a longer term concern about. We are in renegotiations in relation to price more broadly. Then we have a broader geopolitical question about the cost of drugs. This is a live conversation and it is correct to highlight it. It is one I certainly want to flag a longer term question around and one I think we will need to acknowledge and plan for. Certainly, that was a pretty detailed part of our conversation with the Department of public expenditure and reform in relation to our planning for next year. That has to be well understood.