Mr. Daragh Connolly:

Specifically on GDPR and CCTV, I have just upgraded the camera system in my pharmacy. The advice I have been given is that provided I state in my pharmacy that I am using recording equipment and that the person knows or should know they are being recorded in what they do, it does not statutorily affect them that there is a recorded image of them. If somebody comes to me and says, "I am not comfortable that you are recording me", I will then say to them, "Well, you may be more comfortable going to another pharmacy that does not have it." I do not know if there is one. That is my understanding regarding CCTV.

As all pharmacists do, we have a very good rapport with local crime prevention officers and with the Garda in general in local communities. Members of the Garda often come to us to see if we have footage from a previous night. I just let them have it because they have complete access in law to the street-facing cameras that look out at the public. Along with other businesses we help one another. We try to co-ordinate as best we can as to where those cameras are.

Deputy Brassil asked a very good question about the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI. The headline figure I can give is that pharmacy has given up €2.2 billion since those cuts were introduced. The headline figure of the totality of the cuts that pharmacy has suffered in that time is €3.1 billion. I am very disappointed that we have had no engagement with the Minister for Health, the Department of Finance or any Government officials about the unwinding of FEMPI.

The IPU has offered the Department of Health at least 12 different ideas to make the healthcare system better and to save money for the healthcare system. Sadly we have only been able to advance on one of those, which is the access for patients to emergency hormonal contraception in the pharmacy, irrespective of whether they are public or private patients. That is a great advance, but pharmacists can do many more things to add value to the healthcare system because we know the pinch points are with GPs and in accident and emergency departments. We know we can do much more but it can only be done in the context of paying us properly for what do currently. The pharmacies that are most affected by the FEMPI cuts are not the pharmacies on high streets or in affluent areas; they are the pharmacies that are needed most by those local communities that have difficulty in accessing healthcare, namely, rural pharmacies, pharmacies in deprived areas and pharmacies in isolated areas.

I would love to be able to tell the Deputy that we were engaged in a process about the unwinding of FEMPI, which we have been promised and which exists for all other people whose take-home pay was cut by FEMPI, but it has not happened yet. We are hopeful because the Minister has promised we will have an engagement before the end of the year.