Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)
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Question 159: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if she will provide assistance to blind people here by insisting that braille is put on food products and on medicines; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22160/09]

Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)
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European medicines legislation was changed in October 2005 to introduce explicit requirements for Braille to appear on the packaging of medicines. This legislation also requires pharmaceutical companies to ensure that the patient information leaflets for their medicines are made available, on request from patients' organisations, in formats appropriate for the blind and partially sighted. This legislation requires that the name (and in some cases the strength and the pharmaceutical form) of the medicine is expressed in Braille on the product packaging, allowing for the improved differentiation of medicines by blind and partially sighted people.

These new Braille provisions became effective across the EU in October 2005 and are being phased in over a five year period. This means that, by October 2010, all packs of medicines on the market in Ireland that may be given to patients will carry Braille on their packaging, and all pharmaceutical companies that market authorised medicines in Ireland must ensure that the patient information leaflets for their medicines are available, on request, in formats that are suitable for the blind and partially sighted.

At present EU food labelling legislation is harmonised by Council Directive 2000/13/EC, transposed in 2002, with several amendments since. In January 2008, the European Commission proposed a new regulation to update and harmonise this legislation. While it is not proposed to include braille on food labels, there is broad support, at working group level, for improvements to the presentation of information on food labels, including the introduction of a minimum 1.2mm text size and ensuring a significant contrast between the printed text and the background of the label. These improvements will be of benefit to the partially-sighted.