Feargal Quinn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, who comes to the House regularly. We miss him as the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. This legislation arises from the Action Plan for Jobs 2012. I welcome the Bill.

I note that the Bill deals specifically with medicines and veterinary products. Will this affect developments in other fields, such as health? If a company was developing a certain product in the agricultural or agrifood sector, would this or other legislation cover the agricultural or biotech sector? That is part of the overall jobs strategy. We need to help the agricultural bio sector. We could also help SMEs in this sector through provisions similar to those contained in the Bill.

There are opportunities in terms of commercialisation of products, especially in the genetically modified sector. According to Professor David Baulcombe of Cambridge University, there are now plants with resistance to blight and other types of disease, seeds that could reduce the amount of fish meal used in fish farming, drought-resistant crops, and fruits that do not start rotting before they get to the supermarket. Such innovations could be of massive benefit in helping to alleviate world hunger. We need to examine the opportunities in this area. It is also important given the developments in the genetically modified sector in Europe and the fact that many scientists are coming forward to say that if we do not allow the genetically modified sector to develop it will cause further food shortages and starvation around the world. I would like to hear the Minister of State's reply on this subject.

I wish to avail of this opportunity to ask about counterfeit medicines, which the Minister of State mentioned. Counterfeit medicines can be branded or generic medicines. The Bill aims to ensure that Ireland is an attractive base for future development by pharmaceutical companies. Senator Mary White has also spoken about this. Part of that attractiveness is how we secure the market. What are we doing to counter fake medicines? Fake drugs are massively on the increase and the Internet is making such drugs much more available. I am aware that the European Union is making moves in this area, but perhaps we are moving too slowly. Track-and-trace systems - I know something about this in the agricultural area - for medicines are really useful in combatting fake medicines and are used in several European countries as well as the US, but we appear to be lagging behind in this regard. I would like to hear the Minister of State's comment on what is being done and when are we likely to see a track-and-trace system in place here for medicines.

I wish to raise a topic related to innovation on intellectual property. Rather than always talking about how the State can spur innovation, we must consider the State itself, by which I mean the public sector. It could be argued that trade unions have often managed to prevent governments from even publishing the performance indicators which, elsewhere, have encouraged managers to innovate. Most people would agree that there is vast scope for information technology to boost productivity in areas such as education and health care. However, it is sometimes hard for the private sector to get involved in bringing innovation to the public sector and improving productivity.

On the specific subject of medicine and health care, why are we not opening up government services competitively so that if a private company can provide a service by a cheaper method it will be given a chance? The HSE could declare that it will pay for any diagnostic test or device outside of hospital that can be proven to save money over, say, five years - for example, for use in detecting cancer at an early stage, when it is cheaper to treat, versus the late stage, when it is expensive and often fatal. Of course, some inventions will prove worthy while others will not. However, it may be seen as self-correcting. That is, if a test or device does not save money, then the reimbursements to the company providing the service will help focus the efforts of the entrepreneur, and the resulting innovation will both save money and create private sector jobs. We need to see much more of this type of arrangement, which would be a real encouragement to innovation. When we talk of innovation and protecting intellectual property, I reiterate that we need to open up the public sector itself to innovation. There is no point in the Government telling others to innovate if it does not innovate itself.

I support what the Minister of State is doing. As Senator Mary White said, I liked the words he used towards the end of his contribution. His enthusiasm, commitment and dedication to solving these challenges are welcome. I welcome the Bill and wish it well.