Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is a priority area for the Government. It is one that I am very familiar with. I know very well of companies, such as BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc., which operates in my constituency in Cork and which focuses on the manufacturing of drugs for rare diseases, namely orphan drugs. We engage with it and others in the industry on an ongoing basis because we want to ensure that people who are afflicted by very rare diseases and young children whose life expectancy may be limited get access to those drugs as quickly as possible. My role is to ensure that we provide the appropriate funding to achieve that.

Ireland ranks second among OECD countries for the proportion of pharmaceutical expenditure which is covered by the State. We are working to improve the efficiency and the speed of decision-making. We can only make progress on this once companies actually apply through the Irish system, once they have received the necessary authorisation from the European Medicines Agency. This issue is being actively managed. We are making progress and we will continue to focus on that.

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