Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State very much. Of course, I appreciate her detailed response but the giant Beneluxa health technology assessment, HTA, we are speaking about was completed in May 2021. We are now into the first week of October. When we are talking about children's health and children's lives, surely the machinery of the State and of the HSE and the dealings with the Beneluxa HTA should be speeded up because of how important this is. We are not talking about trade. We are not talking about selling something commercial. We are talking about a life-saving treatment. That is the difference. Time is of the essence. I have already stated, and I will say just once more, that two years is the cut-off point for these children. If the drug is not administered in their first two years of life, their hopes and their aspirations to have a better quality of life will be very much diminished. We do not want to see that happen with these two little children. I am so glad and so grateful and thankful to God that a little child, five-month-old Arthur Morgan, became the first child in Britain to receive the drug after the National Health Service struck a deal with the manufacturers of the drug with regard to the price. I really am delighted that child was saved over in England but I want to see the Government being proactive on the two cases we have here. I want to see every Member of this House being able to say that the Government did right by those two families because, when a child is born, nobody knows what types of difficulties, whether mental, physical or intellectual, that person will have. Our job in politics is to use the intelligence of those grouped here together to come up with solutions to the problems families have.

I am not just asking. I am pleading and begging the Government to do its best for these two families. I thank the Minister of State.

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