Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The roll-out of the provision of medicinal cannabis to people such as Vera Twomey, for use by her daughter, Ava, and so many other people for whom she fought, has seen some positive developments lately. Some outstanding issues remain, however. As it stands, we see that future patients will have costs covered for their medicine under the cannabis access programme, which is great. Existing patients on individual licences, however, will continue to pay large amounts of money upfront for medication for family members. This will amount to many thousands of euro in costs for those families. Has Bedrocon applied to be part of the cannabis access programme scheme? If so, has there been some outstanding issue regarding the inclusion of that company in the scheme? It is terribly unfair that those families already availing of medicinal cannabis will have to pay for this vital medication, while others will have it provided for free.

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