Medicinal Products
Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-27
============================================================

Aubrey McCarthy (IND), University of Dublin

I thank the Minister of State for being so forthright. She stated that the HSE "has also advised that the application remains under consideration and it cannot make any comment on possible outcomes from the ongoing process", so timelines are still questionable there. I fully accept assessments exist and procedures matter but, unfortunately, Duchenne muscular dystrophy does not wait for process and these children's illness does not pause while we are dealing with the paperwork. We are 18 months on from the initial assessment of this application and there is still no final timeline. Every month and every day really matters. It is shrinking windows at this stage.
Parents are not asking the Minister of State to bypass any legislation or safeguards, but they are asking her to name a timeframe indicating whether this decision is weeks away. Otherwise, they are living in complete uncertainty. Will the Minister of State make sure we commit to a clear timeline regarding givinostat?

---

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/2026-01-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:33+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-27