Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Taoiseach refers to negotiations and talks which have been initiated under the chairmanship of Bill Shipsey SC and we hope they succeed. However, this problem has arisen because negotiations could not take place in the normal way. It was decided that negotiations could not take place with the IPU because of the provisions of the Competition Act 2002. When the Competition Bill was going through this House in 2002 I do not think any Member anticipated it would be interpreted in such a way as to prevent the negotiations between the HSE and the IPU, which have been required in this case for some time. I do not understand why this has arisen only in the case of pharmacists. Over the course of the past year the Bar Council and the Law Society have negotiated with the State on the levels of legal fees for the criminal legal aid board and the civil legal system and I think it resulted in double digit increases in some cases. There have been negotiations between the HSE and the IMO in respect of general practitioners who are practising on their own. There have been negotiations between the HSE and the dental association on behalf of dentists who are functioning on their own. There have been negotiations between the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and veterinarians on the various schemes for animal testing. How is it that the Competition Act which does not seem to have caused any problem in preventing negotiations between sole traders in other professions has suddenly given rise to this difficulty in the case of pharmacists alone?

The legal advice is interesting. Will the Taoiseach say who has given it? Is it the advice given to the HSE or has the Attorney General expressed an opinion on the matter? If the Competition Act is so rigid that it is preventing the sensible negotiations that need to take place between the HSE and the IPU, the Government should amend it in a way that would allow negotiations to take place. If a State agency comes to a group of professionals or businesses and states it will cut fees or their margins by half, no matter what the merits of the case might be, they will at least want to talk about it and discuss the implications. We now have a difficulty that recovering heroin addicts cannot get methadone — I appreciate that distinctions are being drawn — but the reason pharmacies are talking about closing down is that they have been flagging a problem for the past year but they have not been able to get to the table to negotiate. That needs to be resolved. By all means, let the discussions chaired by Bill Shipsey go ahead but a method needs to be found, if necessary by changing the Competition Act, to allow the IPU to represent pharmacists in the normal way that business associations or professional bodies represent their members in their dealings with the State.

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