Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will have to come back to Deputy Durkan on that. With regard to Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan's question, the short answer is "Yes". We can do more and we can move faster. I believe we are now moving faster. The article in The Lancetreferenced by the Deputy quite rightly looked at Ireland's slower response historically. A lot of money has been put in place in the last three years. As the Deputy will be aware, 127 new drugs or new uses have been approved and 50 of them are cancer drugs. There is a lot going on. Can we do more? Yes. Can we be more transparent? Yes. Ultimately patients and clinicians want to know where any drug is in the process. That is really the benefit of implementing the Mazars report. To the Deputy's question as to whether we need to legislate for that, we do not. That is just about getting on and putting a more transparent process in place where everyone can see where the drugs are in the process.

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