Access to cancer medicines
Deputy Durkan asked the Tánaiste to press the European Commission to ensure equal access to new cancer medicines across the Single Market. The Tánaiste replied that medicine approval remains largely a national health competence and governments want oversight of such major spending.
The difficulty in accessing new cancer-treating drugs in this country from time to time has already been raised this morning in this House and in other locations. It was already mentioned by Deputy Doherty in the House. Will the Tánaiste use his good offices with the European Commission to ensure the attributes of the Single Market are made available, which they are entitled to be, in this country as in every other country in the EU? There should not be differentiation on the basis of different countries. Each territory should have access to the Single Market equally.
Comment on this
The Single Market has evolved in different sectors at different paces and to varying degrees. In health, governments have always retained the idea of national competency, especially in the area of medicine approvals. We spend €3 billion annually on medicines in Ireland. By definition, I can understand why governments would want to have some oversight of such a large expenditure as that.