Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is not the first time this has happened. There is a significant hiatus between the decisions of the pharmacoeconomics unit and those of the group of HSE officials. In no way is it good enough. What group of officials will second-guess the formal process of evaluation that has already taken place? Greece which is more fiscally challenged than Ireland has these drugs in operation and is using them in its hospitals. We lack any sense of urgency. We need someone to cop on and get at this thing, particularly after they have been approved.

We should encourage and nurture new technologies. That is what the country was about at one time. I am not saying the pharmaceutical companies are angels because they are not. They have to be challenged also. As a country, we are not playing this properly; we are just ambling along. We are delaying while people's lives are at risk. We need to value an approach which wants to encourage innovation and investment in research and development. The MSD plants in Cork and Carlow, for example, are key to the processing of these drugs. We have to fund innovation before we can have generic drugs. The bottom line is that these drugs have been passed by the pharmacoeconomics unit for use. We have an urgent obligation to get this over the line as quickly as possible, especially in the interests of the young people who are awaiting these drugs which can have a dramatic impact.

This issue is going to come at us again in the coming months. As I said, pembrolizumab is going to be available to treat kidney and lung cancer. I have suggested a way to grapple with this issue for once and for all. No one in the country would object to the creation of a ring-fenced fund. I suggest €1 of every €250 spent by the country every year be put aside in a ring-fenced fund to be built up over time and used as leverage to negotiate and develop a strategy. It would be separate from the current health budget which cannot deal with this issue as it is. It is time. I do not want this issue to come up on Leaders' Questions in the next few months as the next drugs come on stream. I welcome innovation. If someone had done this in the last century in the case of penicillin, where would we be?

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