Results 821-840 of 1,194,599 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Paul Gavan OR speaker:Hildegarde Naughton OR speaker:Kieran O'Donnell OR speaker:Seán Canney OR speaker:Seán Fleming OR speaker:Seán Sherlock OR speaker:Francis Noel Duffy OR speaker:Richard Bruton OR speaker:Richard Bruton6 OR speaker:Leo Varadkar OR speaker:Brendan Griffin OR speaker:Marian Harkin OR speaker:Stephen Donnelly OR speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív OR speaker:Paul Donnelly OR speaker:Matt Shanahan OR speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett OR speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív88 OR speaker:Gary Gannon OR speaker:Niall Collins OR speaker:Pat Buckley OR speaker:Colm Brophy OR speaker:James O'Connor OR speaker:Pauline Tully OR speaker:Joe Flaherty OR speaker:Ciarán Cannon OR speaker:Mary Butler OR speaker:Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire OR speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív57 OR speaker:Bríd Smith OR speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív14 OR speaker:Seán Crowe OR speaker:Robert Troy OR speaker:Frank Feighan OR speaker:Aindrias Moynihan OR speaker:Noel Grealish OR speaker:Roderic O'Gorman OR speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív46 OR speaker:Paul McAuliffe OR speaker:Sorca Clarke OR speaker:Duncan Smith OR speaker:Malcolm Noonan OR speaker:Catherine Connolly OR speaker:Verona Murphy OR speaker:Jack Chambers OR speaker:Micheál Martin OR speaker:Cormac Devlin OR speaker:Peter Fitzpatrick OR speaker:Ivana Bacik OR speaker:Patrick Costello OR speaker:Michael Healy-Rae OR speaker:Joe O'Brien)
- 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?
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Stephen Donnelly: We have been very clear from day one that the funding is for the full cost of the medicines or devices to be covered. This is what the State is going to fund.
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
David Cullinane: If there is a charge, it is not free.
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I have a question. Is it free or is it not free? Will the Minister explain because it is not coming across very clearly? The State is covering the costs of the products and the HRT.
- Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Oct 2024)
Stephen Donnelly: The cost of the medicine.