Mr. Conor O'Mahony:

I thank the Minister of State. In relation to statistics or market data on the overall sales of antimicrobials, we do not maintain data on that. There is no legal basis for the recording of any gross data on antimicrobials. To give the Deputy a straight answer, we do not have that data. That data is not available. It is also confidential commercial data, which is one of the difficulties in trying to ascertain accurate figures in relation to the sales of antimicrobial products.

It is also important to note the change in relation to intermammories only came in on 28 January 2022 and there has not been a full 12-month period of that yet. We are always aware of the industry, and are aware of what Independent Licensed Merchants Association, ILMA, Irish Co-operative Organisation Society, ICOS, and Irish Pharmacy Union, IPU, stated in the past two weeks. We do not dispute those figures or anything like that because they are the figures that they state. The capacity to explore further market data is not available and it does not exist.