The Tánaiste will not be surprised that I am again raising the issue of rare diseases. In the coming weeks, RTÉ will be broadcasting a "Prime Time Investigates" programme on this topic that will highlight the difficulties patients with such diseases have in accessing drugs here. The Tánaiste was Minister for Health in 2017, so I know he is aware of this matter. Back then, he described the system as broken. The system has not changed one bit in the intervening nine years. There was a bit of transparency in the form of an online tracker, but, fundamentally, the process is the same. I have got to know a lot of people, as has Deputy Aird, over the past few months like Emily Felix, who suffers from Friedreich's ataxia, and Craig Coady, the parent of two boys who also have that terrible and debilitating disease, one of whom passed away, unfortunately. The end for the second child is inevitable because we continue to bury our heads in the sand. We in this House are participants in this because we continue to oversee an overly bureaucratic process that blocks patients from accessing treatment. In some cases, people are travelling to America for treatment that is funded by means of GoFundMe. When are we going to cop on to ourselves and initiate an early access scheme similar to those that obtain right across the EU? It is consistently said that we are laggards. We know this, but we continue to bury our heads in the sand. I ask for early access for these people now.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue again and for acknowledging Deputy's Aird's interest and work in this area as well. I am very sorry to hear of those extraordinarily painful, difficult and sad situations regarding children. I will seek an urgent update from the Minister on the specific drug and the condition to which it relates and on the Deputy's broader point regarding early access.

I am taken by the point the Deputy made in respect of the process, particularly as, quite frankly we are now in a vastly different situation, from a funding point of view, in relation to new drugs than we were when I was Minister for Health. The drugs budget now is €4 billion a year-----

Half a per cent goes to rare diseases.

I take that point too. I think €1 in every €8 in the health budget is now spent on drugs. The Deputy's particular point about rare diseases and the need for Ireland to significantly up its game in terms of an early access programme is serious and sincere. I will ask the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, to come back to him directly. Considering that this matter comes up too often in the House, perhaps we could facilitate time for a proper detailed debate on it in order to hear everyone's ideas.