I thank the Cathaoirleach. In today's edition of The Irish Times, I read about the talks between the HSE and Vertex on pricing and the pricing agreement on Orkambi, the drug for cystic fibrosis sufferers. There are over 500 patients in Ireland who are dependent on the drug. Unfortunately, the HSE and the company involved failed to reach agreement in the past 24 hours. The HSE negotiating team has forwarded the issue to senior management of the HSE to see if it can make a decision on the matter. The original estimated cost was to be somewhere around €400 million and the HSE went in with an opening offer of €75 million.

It worked out at approximately €159,000 per patient. The drug is available in other countries, including Germany, the USA and Austria. Perhaps the HSE might talk to the authorities in these countries to see how they negotiated the price. The Minister has spoken to other health Ministers, but, at this stage, it is a very serious issue, given that so many people are dependent on the availability of the drug.