Colm Burke (Cork North-Central, Fine Gael)

I fully accept the answer the Minister of State has given in the sense that cost-effectiveness is also an important issue in relation to any new medicine that is made available under the drugs payment scheme. What I am saying, however, is that I understand that after the decision of July 2024, there were further negotiations but, again, no progress was made. While there was a considerable cost reduction made by the pharmaceutical company, my understanding is that a decision was taken following the HTA not to approve this.

I am concerned about the fact that other countries in Europe now have this in place. We must look carefully at it as well, even if we are to start off with the age group comprising those over 75, and even setting aside some money to deal with that age group. As already stated, the age profile is changing and the demand for hospital services will increase dramatically over the next few years. Therefore, the more people we can keep out of hospital and away from the medical services, the better. One of the ways of doing that is vaccination programmes, whether it is the flu vaccine, the shingles vaccination or other vaccines. Vaccines help to keep people from having to require hospital care. Therefore, this is a programme we should carefully look at, particularly now in relation to over-75s, and review to see if we can get that slot in there to at least start some element of it, in the same way other European countries have done.

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