David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is attempting to attract virtue to himself for transposing the EU directive, but as I understand it, he has to transpose the directive. It is part of the whole EU system that when directives are issued, they have to be transposed into domestic law. I do not award him any great virtue over that. The Minister cited a section dealing with cost-effectiveness. That is the principal intention of the section he read into the record. In the context of cost-effectiveness, the regulation states that they may take health into account. That is not very strong - they may - but that also leaves the possibility that they may not. It is not a guarantee at all, as the Minister was purporting to claim, and that makes it much more serious that he is removing the references to health that are in the Bill as presented.