Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the question. We spend a lot of money on medicines in this country. Last year the medicines investment was more than €3.2 billion. This is a sizeable amount. The vast majority of the €2.8 billion was spent on the medicines themselves. There was also money spent on administration and payments to pharmacists for dispensing amounting to just over €400 million. Our public spend on medicines is, believe it or not, €1 in every €8 that we spend on healthcare. There is an unprecedented level of investment. Deputy Durkan is aware that over the past three years we have invested almost €100 million in new medicines. It was badly needed. It has led to the provision of almost 150 new medicines or extended new uses for medicines that we have. Spending on these medicines is estimated to have been almost €330 million to the end of 2023. There has been a sizeable investment when we factor in the full year costs of new development funding.

As per the 2013 Act, a company has to submit an application to the HSE to have a new medicine added to the reimbursement list. We sometimes forget that Ireland is a small country and a small market. We are not always prioritised by companies in the first stage. It is something that we are working on, and we have some multilateral agreements in place as well through Beneluxa.

For this year the HSE will have €30 million for new medicine spend. This comprises €20 million that I have allocated from the December additional new development funding and we are targeting a €10 million reduction in the €3.2 billion spend through a rapid switch to generics and biosimilars. This will provide another €30 million this year for new medicines, which is obviously going to be very important. In my next response I will come back to Deputy Durkan on the process he asked about.

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