Dr. Lorraine Nolan:

No, not necessarily manufactured here. These are medicines that are brought into the country. What I am saying is that we have adequate supplies and there is no immediate concern.

Deputy Durkan raised a point about third countries, bringing medicines in from them and how the system can adapt to that. The European system, of which Ireland is a part, is very well used to dealing with third countries. It is actually set up to allow for importation of medicines from third countries. There are additional regulatory requirements that must be put in place if we bring in medicines. This is where the product must go through a process called batch release testing. The developments in Europe over the past two years in preparation for the UK withdrawal have meant that much of the transfer of these activities into other European countries for certain medicines has transferred to Ireland, so we have good capability to address that situation as well.