Results 261-280 of 1,152,978 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Rory O'Hanlon OR speaker:Joan Collins OR speaker:Colm Burke OR speaker:Seán Sherlock OR speaker:Kieran O'Donnell OR speaker:Peter Burke OR speaker:Pearse Doherty OR speaker:Duncan Smith OR speaker:Darren O'Rourke OR speaker:Emer Higgins OR speaker:Mary Lou McDonald OR speaker:Brendan Griffin OR speaker:Patrick Costello OR speaker:Steven Matthews OR speaker:Jim O'Callaghan OR speaker:Réada Cronin OR speaker:Pat Buckley OR speaker:Micheál Martin OR speaker:James Lawless OR speaker:Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire OR speaker:Francis Noel Duffy OR speaker:Eamon Ryan OR speaker:Charlie McConalogue OR speaker:Sorca Clarke OR speaker:Michael Fitzmaurice OR speaker:Brendan Howlin OR speaker:Martin Heydon OR speaker:Alan Dillon OR speaker:Denise Mitchell OR speaker:Aengus Ó Snodaigh OR speaker:Rose Conway-Walsh OR speaker:Aengus Ó Snodaigh32 OR speaker:Colm Brophy OR speaker:James Browne OR speaker:Aengus Ó Snodaigh30 OR speaker:John Lahart OR speaker:Robert Troy)
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Catherine Connolly: Deputy, these are very specific amendments and I am going to have to hold you to them.
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
David Cullinane: They are all on the topic of HRT.
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Catherine Connolly: There is limited time. There is a guillotine.
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Danny Healy-Rae: I will finish now.
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Catherine Connolly: I know but I have an obligation to tell you that we are discussing amendments and we must stick to them.
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Danny Healy-Rae: All of this is relevant to providing a service. If we do not have the nurses or GPs on board we cannot operate the service. The main question is why the Minister closed the ophthalmology unit in Tralee general hospital. There are 800 people on the waiting list there. If someone gets hit in the eye or something steel or whatever goes into someone's eye, and there are accidents happening...
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Catherine Connolly: Does Deputy Boyd Barrett have a question?
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I want to hear the Minister's response about the charging and the margin.
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Stephen Donnelly: I cannot get into ophthalmology in this debate but I am more than happy to speak to Deputy Healy-Rae about it offline. I will respond to his relevant question on the healthcare providers who are required to support patients. With regard to the margin for pharmacists, the current situation is that pharmacists will have two types of patients. These are patients with medical cards and...
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
David Cullinane: Why does the State not just cover the entire cost?
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Stephen Donnelly: For the reason I gave previously. We had a choice. This comes down to option 1 or option 2. We could have looked to cover GP fees-----
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
David Cullinane: I am speaking about the full cost of the medicine.
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Stephen Donnelly: I am answering exactly that. Option 1 would be what Deputy Cullinane is suggesting, which is the margin for the pharmacist, the product and the GP consultations, as we have done for free contraception.
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
David Cullinane: Leave the GPs out of it; just the pharmacists.
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Stephen Donnelly: Just the pharmacists. That option would cost more money. If we had gone further than providing the medicines for free, we would, in the first instance, have had to bring in something like age bands. I do not think that would have been appropriate. I spoke to the National Women's Council about it. The view I got back was that the way we are doing it is the right way to do it, which is to...
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
David Cullinane: I have a quick further point. Is there any sense as to what that margin might be? That is the obvious question we are going to be asked. I get what the Minister is saying. I am not interested in the GP side of it. When a woman goes to get the product, the State will pay for the cost of the product and then the margin, profit, or whatever we want to call it is paid by the person. What...
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Stephen Donnelly: I thank Deputy Cullinane. This will be a matter for various pharmacists, just as it is today. A private patient going to a pharmacist today buying HRT products-----
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
David Cullinane: So it is not free HRT
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Stephen Donnelly: It is free HRT, of course it is, but we cannot expect pharmacists to prescribe without a fee or a margin. They do it today.
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Who will pay the margin?