Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I am not trying to be unfair to the Deputy as I know he has been helpful but he raised this earlier and I did not agree to it.

With regard to consulting, which was raised by Deputy McManus, of course this will happen. Again, I do not believe we need to be prescriptive with regard to who one consults and when one consults them. In fact, as with the Medical Practitioners Bill, there has been widespread consultation with pharmacy interests in the preparation of this Bill, which has been strengthened. This is normal practice nowadays and is a good thing. We do not need specifically to write it into the Bill for it to happen.

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