Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Everyone is welcome. I thank them for the presentation. I think Mr. Twomey was in touch with me about 12 years ago when I was in the Department of Health. At that stage he was way ahead of the curve and very innovative in the kinds of services he was providing from his premises in Cloyne. I remember being struck that it set out a very good potential model for the future of the pharmacy sector. Unfortunately, progress has been quite slow since then but Mr. Twomey was certainly putting it into practice.

At that time, I recall trying to get approval for pharmacists to provide the flu vaccination. I remember being shocked at the resistance there was to that. That seemed to be a no-brainer but there was resistance. This kind of thing is often regarded as business and losing business from other sectors. Thankfully we are at a stage when the flu vaccination is available locally in community pharmacies as was the Covid vaccination although there was also delays in making that available for pharmacists and, indeed, publicising that which was very regrettable.

Is there further potential for expanding access to vaccinations generally? Are there any other vaccine programmes that could be expanded in pharmacies?