Medicinal Cannabis Bill must go before Health Committee immediately- no more Government stalling

People Before Profit TD, Gino Kenny, will today join Vera Twomey she attempts to walk from Cork to Dublin in order to get the Health Minister to recognise her daughters need for medicinal cannabis.

Vera’s daughter, Ava Barry, has a form of intractable epilepsy call Dravet’s syndrome. Ava would normally experience hundreds of seizures due to her illness but the use of medicinal cannabis oil has reduced there seizures to one or two a day.

Recently, Minister Simon Harris denied Ava permission to avail of a special ministerial exemption to use medicinal cannabis to help her condition.

Gino Kenny offered his solidarity and support to Vera and Ava and said that it is now time that the government stop needlessly delaying the passage of his Bill, Cannabis for Medicinal Purposes Regulation Bill 2016.

Mr Kenny said, “I would like to offer my full solidarity and support to Vera and Ava.

“It is now time for the government to stop needlessly stalling this Bill going before the Health Committee. The Minister needs to pull his head out of the sand on this issue and realise that there are potentially hundreds of thousands of people who could benefit from cannabis based medicines being made available. He is denying these people, like Ava, treatment that could ease their pain.

“The Minister now needs to act and stop getting in the way of people getting access to the medicines that they need.”