Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and appreciate his taking the time to deal with this matter. As he is aware, I am a member of the Joint Committee on Health. We produced a report on orphan drugs, in particular trying to fast-track the process and bring more certainty at an earlier stage. I understand that the assessment process for many drugs here takes, on average, 23 months before a decision is made on moving forward to the next stage in the process. The people who are doing research and development in this area spend a lot of time and money trying to bring forward products which can be of benefit to people. Likewise, the number of people who would benefit from such drugs is quite small but it is very important to them. Over the past two or three years, a number of ongoing battles about whether a drug would receive approval have taken place in the public domain. The report sets out quite clear proposals about expediting and improving the process. The Minister of State should outline the work done by the Department and HSE to improve the processing of applications.