Mr. Shane O'Sullivan:

Approximately 70% are in Dublin. While we are a Dublin pharmacy and our customers are predominantly in Leinster, we also have high concentrations in some of the bigger cities such as Cork, Galway and Limerick. In the Deputy's question on whether the service will be available in practice, I think he is asking if we are trying to service the country from one shop. We are not; we have expansion plans for more stores in the next few months. The mobile pharmacy service will always continue given that, no matter where we have a store, there will be people in the community who cannot get to the pharmacy. It is a very important part of the business.

Senator Colm Burke asked whether the pharmacy sector was under challenge and how I saw it playing out over the next five years. Ireland has many more pharmacies per capitathan other countries, including the UK. However, given that Ireland is a rural country with the population spread out, one could argue that we need more pharmacies. There are many unviable pharmacies in Ireland and it stems from the cost base when they were established. We will see some pharmacy closures during the next five years.