Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I would like to see a study on the market for Internet drugs in different countries, depending on the generosity of their public health service, in other words, in countries where people do not have heavy prescription charges, such as ourselves, for example. The drugs refund scheme is extraordinarily good for middle class families, in particular, but it hits people on a lower income. In countries where there are comparatively low pharmaceutical product prices, like France, people are in danger of killing themselves with the levels of pharmaceutical consumption. Is there any evidence that where people have access to comparatively cheap prescription medicine through their public health services there is a decline in the demand for Internet drugs and, by contrast, does one find a significant demand in a country like the United States which probably has the cruelest health service in the world?

I am unashamedly making a political argument for the idea of a publicly-provided, free at point of use health service. I would ask the Minister of State not to go the route of trying to blame the Internet service providers. This would be shooting the messenger because one does not like the message. It is reasonable in the case of the exploitation of children. It is a sufficiently grave matter involving so much human hurt. Whatever people do with Internet drugs, they are, by and large, doing it to themselves. This is a different level of hurt from the person who is exploiting children in order to sell their images on the Internet. I do not think we should go the route of trying to clamp down on ISPs. We must ensure that people have access to medication at a reasonable price, otherwise we are leaving them wide open to this problem.