Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have heard the harrowing stories on the radio and many people have contacted me personally about this issue. As a result of the concerns expressed, and the personal stories of people in terrible pain, I endeavoured to look into it and discussed it in detail with the Minister for Health last week. It is important that we fully understand and are honest about the background to this issue.

This is a medicine and these are patches that are licensed for one purpose only, which is post-shingles pain in adults. It is to be given to adult patients who have localised pain after having had shingles. Unfortunately, over the course of the past number of years, many doctors have been prescribing it for an off-licence use, for other uses for which it is not licensed. That is a legitimate medical practice in certain circumstances but there need to be some controls around this practice because people can become dependent on such medicines. It is an anaesthetic and not something one should prescribe lightly. Long-term use of anaesthetics can have consequences for people. They can become dependent on them and there are other long-term side effects. There is no problem when GPs prescribe this medicine for the thing it is licensed for in Ireland, which is post-shingles pain in adults, but if they are going to prescribe it for a purpose that is unlicensed, they have to go through some sort of procedure to ensure it is done safely and I do not think anybody should be against that. It is not simply a matter of money. It is also a matter of patient safety.

This patch was being prescribed ten times as much, per capita, in Ireland as it was in the UK and there is something seriously wrong when a medicine is being used ten times as much here as in a very similar country such as the one over the water. That is because it was being prescribed for a use for which it was not licensed and without any sort of controls. From the point of view of patient safety, it was the right thing to do to make sure that, if GPs and other doctors are prescribing this medicine for a purpose for which it is not licensed, there should be some controls around it. That is what the HSE has done.

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