Ms Anne Marie Seymour:

A lot of aspects of this clarify what is already in place as regards pharmacists. The legislation refers to the locations where medicines can be supplied and refers to a hospital, a nursing home or other. The Attorney General has spoken about future-proofing the legislation, particularly if there were another pandemic in the morning. It is a matter of referring to pharmacists specifically as a profession that can supply medicines. It is about strengthening what is in the Irish Medicines Board Act. Any further action would have to involve secondary legislation. Decisions made on the supply of medicines by pharmacists would entail the development of secondary legislation. This involves not only pharmacists but also other healthcare professionals as regards the vaccination programme. We had a really good vaccination programme in Ireland during the Covid pandemic. Other healthcare professionals were brought in to administer vaccinations who had not been used before. We would really like to build on that and learn from the benefits. We had such a good uptake of vaccinations. The inclusion of that in this Bill will provide for the retention of those other healthcare professionals, again within a framework such that the right training and the right regulation are required. This involves pharmacists and others as regards certain aspects such as the State vaccination programme.