Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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Question 41: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the amount of money which will be needed in 2009 to pay for supplies of Tamiflu and other measures to address the swine flu pandemic; the location where such funds will come from; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26328/09]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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The current estimated cost of pandemic preparedness for 2009 is €66.3m. The bulk of this - €60m – represents the cost of procuring an estimated 5.8 million doses of vaccine in 2009 of the total 7.7 million doses to be procured by the HSE. The remainder covers a variety of other items, including some extra antiviral drugs to add to the substantial existing stockpile of antivirals which had previously been procured as part of our pandemic preparedness plans.

The funding for some of these items is likely to come from the existing HSE budget but I anticipate that exceptional items of major expenditure, such as the vaccine, will require the allocation of additional funding to the HSE. My Department has been, and will continue to remain, in contact with the Department of Finance about this issue.

The Deputy may wish to note that the various measures taken to date are based on the deliberations of the National Public Health Emergency Team, which includes representatives of the Department, the HSE and the Pandemic Influenza Expert Group. They also take account of the information and advice received from the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Control. In particular, the stockpile of antivirals and the planned purchase of pandemic vaccine, when it becomes available, give Ireland a very favourable population coverage compared to our EU partners.