Professor Tom Fahey:

I agree. There is a peculiar set-up in Ireland as many generic manufacturers provide different generic drugs. Earlier I mentioned pharmacists. I work in the research area and receive a lot of helpful advice from pharmacy colleagues. General practice and pharmacy practice can work more closely together but, again, that goes back to the prescribing aspect. Let us say one has a list of generic drugs, and please correct me if I am wrong about the following, a pharmacist can prescribe an equivalent generic if he or she has it in stock. One must convey such information clearly to the patient. We must move in that direction because otherwise we will have a very high proprietary prescription rate and a much more costly prescribing environment here.