To ask the Minister of Health to detail (i) any barriers his Department has identified in recouping costs associated with the Cross-Border Healthcare Directive; and (ii) how these barriers will be addressed in future schemes.

The Republic of Ireland Reimbursement Scheme (RoIRS) was a limited administrative version of the Cross-Border Healthcare Directive (CBHD) which ceased to apply to Northern Ireland (NI) following the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.

The CBHD set out a framework of rules which allowed patients to seek and pay for treatment in either the state or private sectors in an EEA country and apply to for reimbursement of the cost (up to the cost of treatment in Health and Social Care in NI).

Under the RoIRS, patients were able to seek, and pay for, routinely commissioned treatment in the private sector in the Republic of Ireland and have the cost reimbursed (up to the cost of treatment in Health and Social Care in NI). To use the scheme patients had to receive prior authorisation before travelling for treatment.

As these were both reimbursement schemes, the Department did not recoup any money through either the CBHD or RoIRS.