Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I join Deputy Kenny and the Taoiseach in congratulating Anne Enright on winning the Man Booker Prize and to express my delight that she has a family connection with Dún Laoghaire.

From the beginning of this week, approximately 4,500 recovering heroin addicts, almost 3,000 of whom reside in Dublin, have had their lives thrown into chaos as a result of the withdrawal of the methadone dispensing service provided to them by pharmacists. These people are, in the main, recovering heroin addicts who have been receiving methadone treatment in the community pharmacy arena. Many of them have been getting their lives together, returning to work and so on. The withdrawal of this service has thrown them back into the ad hoc arrangement of drug treatment clinics which brings them back into the same type of environment and company which may have been responsible for their problems in the first instance. Not alone is their health being exposed, but they are being exposed to the possibility of a return to heroin addiction. Despite what is claimed, the decision of pharmacists to withdraw the methadone service appears to be directly connected with the dispute which has been taking place for some time between pharmacists and the Health Service Executive about the method of payment for the dispensing of drugs under the GMS scheme and, to some extent, under the drugs refund scheme. As I understand it, the Health Service Executive has unilaterally decided to cut the margins pharmacists receive for the drugs they dispense under the GMS scheme and the drugs refund scheme. Some pharmacists tell me that the extent of the cut, in respect of some drugs, means they are now required to dispense at either below cost or with a very low margin. In the long term the consequences of this will be to put at risk the independent local pharmacy with which we are all familiar. It will be of huge concern, in time to come, if people are given a prescription from their doctor but there is no local pharmacy, meaning they have to travel to the nearest big town or city for the prescription to be dispensed at one of the big pharmacy chains.

At the heart of the dispute has been the refusal of the Health Service Executive to negotiate margins and the method of payment for drugs with the Irish Pharmaceutical Union, apparently because the Health Service Executive interprets the Competition Act 2002 as prohibiting it from negotiating with the IPU because they are independent businesses and issues arise related to competition. The rows about not negotiating with the IPU and about margins on drugs dispensed by pharmacists have been rumbling on for well over a year. Does the Taoiseach agree that, whatever about the merits of the dispute, it is not right that some of the most vulnerable people in society are made a target and used in a dispute such as this to the extent that their needs and rights are seriously put at risk? Does he agree there is a necessity to return to dispensing methadone in community pharmacies? What can be done to bring that about as quickly as possible? Can the Taoiseach explain how the dispute between the pharmacists and the HSE, which has been rumbling on for so long, has been allowed to come to this pass? What will be done to facilitate discussions between the HSE and the Irish Pharmaceutical Union to settle the outstanding issues relating to the dispensing of methadone and the payment under the drugs scheme?

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