Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There has been a matter in the newspapers in the past few days, with pharmaceutical industries claiming 500 job losses because of Government policy on reducing the cost of drugs. It is important that we provide the right information, that in 2000 the cost of pharmaceuticals to the health boards was €570 million and that by 2008 and 2009 it had increased to over €2 billion. We could not allow this to continue and if we had allowed such a pattern to evolve, we would now be paying a further €1.2 billion on top of the €2 billion we were already paying. We introduced legislation in this House on the use of generic drugs and have had to come from a position where in 2013 only 10% of drugs used were generics. In the United Kingdom the usage rate was approximately 80%. As a result of that legislation, the level of generic drugs used is now at 48%, which represents a major increase. I am not saying we should go down the same road as the United Kingdom to get to an 80% rate, but we certainly need to bring down the cost of pharmaceuticals. In doing so we can bring on-stream new drugs that could be helpful. The media seem to have been attracted to the argument that 500 jobs have been lost, but it does not give the true picture that we have had to deal with to ensure we can continue to provide the health care service we want to provide. However, we must reduce the cost of drugs even more. My understanding is that this year the bill will be approximately €1.8 billion, which is still not low enough. We should certainly be working to bring it down further.