Health Strategies
Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-30
============================================================

Mary Butler (FF), Waterford

I thank Senator Noonan for the opportunity to address the Seanad on this issue. He has made a very compelling case. I am taking this Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill.
The State acknowledges the importance of access to new and innovative medicines for patients and is acutely aware of the challenges that patients diagnosed with asthma face. By way of background, MART inhalers are combination medicines that combine a steroid with formoterol, a long-acting bronchodilator medicine. This has an important benefit for patients in the form of a reduced need to carry separate maintenance and reliever inhalers.
Affordable access to medicines is a priority for the Government. There are a range of health supports available for patients with asthma under the general medical services, GMS, scheme and the drugs payment scheme, DPS, that reduce the cost of asthma medicines, including MART combination inhalers.
The HSE has statutory responsibility for medicine pricing and reimbursement decisions under the Health (Pricing and Supply of Medical Goods) Act 2013. The HSE has added a number of MART inhalers to the reimbursement list for eligible patients in Ireland, recognising the value offered by these medicines and supporting patient access. Medicines on the reimbursement list for medical card holders are available free from a pharmacist on payment of the statutory prescription charge, while under the drugs payment scheme, no individual or family pays more than €80 each month towards the cost of approved prescribed medicines.
In addition, individuals may also be able to claim tax relief on their medicinal expenditure at the standard rate of 20%, further increasing affordability. Eligibility for the drug payment scheme and medical card is determined in the context of the broader eligibility framework rather than by individual condition. There has been a significant shift in the quality and delivery of asthma care in recent years, with more patients being provided with care in the community and at an earlier stage.
The HSE’s chronic disease management programme provides free, twice-yearly reviews with a GP and practice nurse for medical card or GP visit card holders diagnosed with asthma. This includes personalised care plans to manage daily medications and address symptom management and flare-ups. Research into the chronic disease management programme has shown that over 90% of patients with chronic diseases such as asthma are now successfully managing their conditions in community settings.
The State continues to invest in making asthma medicines affordable for patients with: over €100 million in expenditure per annum within the community; new and innovative treatments continuously being added to the reimbursement list, and a suite of measures in the new framework agreements on the supply and pricing of medicines to strengthen affordability and availability across the coming years.
The Senator made a very important point about subsidised access. The health budget this year is €27 billion, €4 billion of which will be spent on drugs. A massive amount of the budget is being spent on drugs, and that is only going in one direction. Consideration of any future changes to the eligibility for medicines will be made in the context of current healthcare priorities and the budget available. The Minister and other Ministers of State are currently in negotiations in relation to the budget. However, I will certainly bring the points Senator Noonan has made very clearly to the Minister. I do not think there is a family in Ireland that is not familiar with the blue inhaler. For young people, it can be a most distressing time for them, especially when they get a diagnosis.
I thank the Senator Noonan for raising this matter.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-09-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-30