{"id":463,"date":"2012-08-09T15:37:17","date_gmt":"2012-08-09T15:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/pharmaceutical-companies-ripping-off-irish-taxpayers\/"},"modified":"2012-08-09T15:37:17","modified_gmt":"2012-08-09T15:37:17","slug":"pharmaceutical-companies-ripping-off-irish-taxpayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/pharmaceutical-companies-ripping-off-irish-taxpayers\/","title":{"rendered":"Pharmaceutical Companies ripping off Irish Taxpayers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pharmaceutical Companies ripping off Irish Taxpayers
<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/span>A Sunday Business Post survey showing the high price of\u00a0\u00a0“generic drugs” in this State\u00a0 is further compelling\u00a0evidence that patients and Irish taxpayers are being ripped off. This is the view of Dublin South West Sinn F\u00e9in TD Se\u00e1n Crowe who said the Health Service Executive (HSE) was failing to secure a fair price from the Pharmaceutical Industry for drugs\u00a0with some \u00a0costing up to 12 times more from what is available through the North\u2019s\u00a0 Health Service.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is outrageous that people in thiis State\u00a0are paying up to 12 times more for generic drugs when compared to patients in the North’s\u00a0 Health Service (NHS) .<\/span> <\/span>In a deal\u00a0 seemingly sanctioned by the Department of Health two years ago, generic drug manufacturers are allowed to charge the State up to 98 per cent of the price of the original branded medicine.<\/span> This means Irish taxpayers are actually \u00a0paying drug companies almost the same price for cheaper generic drugs as it pays for well known \u00a0branded medicines.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Health Service Executive (HSE) is failing to protect the interests of Irish citizens and\u00a0by failing to negotiate a fair price from Pharmaceutical Companies\u00a0and\u00a0is making\u00a0situation even\u00a0worse by\u00a0this compliant\u00a0Government\u00a0 Agreement with that industry. Claims that the massive price differential is a result of specific packaging that is required for this State is an insult to people’s intelligence. <\/span><\/p>\n

We know that there is crisis after crisis in the roll out of services in Health and cost of drugs is playing a significant part in cost overuns. What is equally disturbing to\u00a0Irish taxpayes \u00a0is the fact that many of the actual drug products are made in Ireland and\u00a0 shipped abroad to be sold there\u00a0signifcantly\u00a0reduced cost to their respective Health ServIces under more favourable “sweetheart deals.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Sinn F\u00e9in has repeatedly raised this matter with the Irish \u00a0Health Minister James Reilly who should be doing more to reduce costs by ensuring the greater use and availability \u00a0of generic drugs. This Survey shows the situation is even worse than many suspected yet the Government has taken little or no \u00a0action, apart from the publication of a Bill which has yet to be enacted.<\/span><\/p>\n

”\u00a0Surely it is long overdue that\u00a0\u00a0Irish Government representatives\u00a0 address the\u00a0 anomoly of drugs being produced in Ireland yet sold abroad cheaper than here to\u00a0the Irish\u00a0\u00a0Health Service..” <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pharmaceutical Companies ripping off Irish Taxpayers A Sunday Business Post survey showing the high price of\u00a0\u00a0“generic drugs” in this State\u00a0 is further compelling\u00a0evidence that patients and Irish taxpayers are being ripped off. This is the view of Dublin South West Sinn F\u00e9in TD Se\u00e1n Crowe who said the Health Service Executive (HSE) was failing to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}