Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 14 November 2013

Public Accounts Committee

2012 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 22 - Eligibility for Medical Cards

11:50 am

Mr. Patrick Burke:

In terms of materiality, I have spoken extensively about what we have done in the GP area. The same applies to the pharmacy area, as Mr. O'Brien said. In the past three or four years we have conducted almost 300 individual inspections with the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland and the Irish Medicines Board. We all carry separate powers and strengths when we carry out our blitz of pharmacies. We examine their financial circumstances, for example. There has been that level of investigation in the sector. In the past few years we have inspected a significant percentage of the country's approximately 1,700 pharmacies.