Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome this Bill. It is quite progressive and long overdue. We always said that inpatient charges have not been conducive to a universal public health service. This has been very contentious in the last number of decades. We have always argued that inpatient charges have been a barrier to many people gaining access to healthcare. Even the collection of these charges is an onerous and bureaucratic task. I do not think a public health service should be chasing after people for inpatient charges. Obviously, that has a very stressful effect on people who have to access healthcare. Debt collection by debt collectors is not acceptable for people who have run up a bill. People cannot work because of their illness and debt collectors are sending them letters. They may have come out of a very serious illness. That is not conducive to universal healthcare in a fair system. This Bill is welcome. All these stealth charges have an effect on people trying to access healthcare.

I will mention a number of issues regarding hospital car parking charges. I could never understand, and nobody could ever convince me, why people have to pay car parking charges in hospitals. I do not see the logic in it at all. I do not see the logic that when people go to hospital, they must sometimes pay enormous amounts of money per week to park their cars. Sometimes they have to bring their cars to the hospital. I just do not get that. Could somebody explain to me why people have to be charged to go to hospital and park their car? Sometimes public transport is not available, and they are then charged for parking. It is disappointing that the national children's hospital charges for car parking. it has capped it at €10 per day, but if a person has to go to hospital every day with his or her child, that is €50 over one week. I do not get that. Can the Minister properly explain why car parking charges per day are being implemented in the national children's hospital?

The Minister referenced Kaftrio earlier in his speech. There is obviously good news for those 35 children who now have access to that drug. I raised this with the Taoiseach today.

I believe that what this company did was unforgivable. Vertex Pharmaceuticals is based in Dublin. To drag this out for one year and to deny those children that drug for one year is absolutely unforgivable, given that the amount of money Vertex Pharmaceuticals made from the drug is absolutely obscene. They have made billions, not millions, of dollars yet they dragged this out with the HSE. I do not actually blame the Government on this. I blame the company for dragging this out to get more money from the Government and from families. It is unforgivable and the Minister would probably agree with me that this should not have been dragged out for one year. Those 35 children should have got that drug when they needed it. While it is good that they have it now, it is unforgivable that pharmaceutical companies have the Government over a barrel with regard to pricing. I am aware that the company has a monopoly on it but it is unforgivable given the obscene amount of money they have made from this drug alone. Hopefully this will never happen again. There are lessons to be learned about reimbursement and children not being given a drug when they need it.

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