Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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518. To ask the Minister for Health the estimated cost of providing all prescription drugs free of charge; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45911/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Health Service Executive (HSE) has statutory responsibility for decisions on pricing and reimbursement of medicines and medical items, in accordance with the Health (Pricing and Supply of Medical Goods) Act 2013. To be reimbursable by the State, prescribed medicines must be on the formal reimbursable list, in accordance with the 2013 Act.

A further difficulty to accurately cost for providing all prescription drugs free of charge is that the HSE does not have data on prescriptions provided to private patients.

Therefore, the costing is based on the abolition of prescription charges under the General Medical Services (GMS) Scheme and the reduction of the Drugs Payment Scheme (DPS) threshold to €0.

The estimated full year cost of abolishing all prescription charges under the GMS Scheme is €94.5m.

The estimated full year cost of reducing the DPS threshold to €0 is €243.8m.

Therefore, the estimated full year cost of providing all prescription drugs free of charge is €338.3m

The above costing does not take account of changes in demographics or how the abolition of all charges may impact claimant behaviour.