Dr. Peadar O'Grady:

I think the Senator is missing the point. I am saying there is no such specialist in cannabis-based medicine, nor is there any requirement to develop such a specialism. Nobody to my knowledge, including us, is making any such recommendation. What we are saying is quite the opposite. This is an ordinary feature of everyday medicine. One knows of a treatment and of an application from reading the literature as outlined by Professor Barnes. One makes a recommendation to a patient that a course of treatment would be good for him or her and one does everything to facilitate his or her access to that treatment.

At the moment, doctors and pharmacists are only prevented from doing so because it is against the law. This Bill would remove that obstacle. That is what it is for. Sticking in a constraint about consultant-only prescribing is not based on any rationale. It would not make things safer. It would only serve to restrict treatment. It would also put work on consultants in the same way that the Minister is trying to approve everything at present. We would be trying to get a small group of specialists to approve every recommendation for cannabis-based medicines. It would just be a waste of their time and it is not necessary. It is a restrictive move that has no other utility. It is not required.