Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the new statistics showing that 362 licences have been issued, which is very positive. Recently a patient reached out to me who had applied for a ministerial licence. The Minister for Health will be very familiar with this case because I submitted a number of parliamentary questions on the matter. What has come to light is that because the consultant is the one who completes a ministerial licence application, he or she is then deemed to be the applicant, which means that the Department will only engage with the consultant. In this particular case, the application was submitted on 7 December 2023, more than five months ago. In response to a parliamentary question, I was told that the Department would expect the consultant to hear back within a matter of days so something has gone seriously wrong here. The consultant has had to submit a complaint to try to ascertain what is going on. The patient is seen as a third party and cannot access any information whatsoever. I just wanted to highlight that again on the floor of the Dáil. Hopefully, I will get an answer for that patient.

I also want to point to recent HRB research where the board reviewed existing medical cannabis research and found evidence to support the prescribing of cannabis for the conditions that are approved, which is fantastic. The research also found evidence to support its use for nerve pain, especially in those with multiple sclerosis, diabetes and spinal cord injuries. That is very positive news and I applaud the HRB for bringing this to light. However, this report is at odds with a study by the board in 2016, which also found evidence that medicinal cannabis in some forms has at least moderate efficacy in treating sleep disorders and stimulating appetite, chemotherapy as a whole, fibromyalgia, PTSD and some Parkinson's diseases. There is also evidence for its usefulness in the treatment of dementia and a list of other conditions that I do not have time to go into now. I hope the review under way will take account of the number of different conditions that have been approved under ministerial licence and the recent research that has been conducted in the area.

See this speech in context