Mr. Eugene Lennon:

The HPRA already issues a range of licences for controlled drugs, including import licences and export licences. Wholesale distributors for medicinal products, including for distribution of controlled drugs, are already registered with the HPRA. The HPRA has a whole range of functions with regard to a controlled drug like cannabis or a medicinal product, which some people would see cannabis as. Those functions are under the remit of the HPRA already. We seem to be setting up quite an elaborate parallel system. We are talking about licences for retail pharmacies here already. They are already registered with the PSI. There is a whole system for this. The only thing not currently dealt with is the provision in this Bill for cultivation of cannabis for medicinal purposes. That is not Government policy at the moment and is the only provision that other State agencies are not dealing with at the moment.