Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I acknowledge the meetings of the Joint Committee on Health and Children that have taken place yesterday and today. The committee has done its best to tease out the issues. I should point out that if any community pharmacists decide not to honour their contracts they must give three months notice. No pharmacy in the Republic, to the best of my knowledge, has provided such notice. Thus, the issue should not arise. I note Deputy Kenny's point that there should not be any precipitate action, which means that pharmacists should not break their contracts. That is the position.

The Shipsey dialogue process was established by the HSE to address the concerns of the Irish Pharmaceutical Union, on behalf of community pharmacists, about the implications of the legal advice on competition law and the right of the IPU to negotiate margins on medicines. That has continued for the last few months. We discussed it here last autumn. At a meeting on 5 December 2007 under the auspices of Mr. Shipsey, a two-stage process was offered to the IPU by the HSE. The first stage was to address the immediate concerns of the IPU regarding the alleged impact of the proposed revised wholesale arrangements on GMS-dependent pharmacists — the ones mentioned by Deputy Kenny — while the other was to provide a basis upon which discussions on a new substantive contract could commence. As the IPU rejected this offer, the HSE proceeded to offer a draft interim contract to address the main concerns regarding the alleged impact of the proposals. As Deputies we have all heard from pharmacists about how this will affect them. The details of the draft interim contract and the HSE's other intentions in this regard were set out in letters to individual community pharmacists after Christmas and into the new year.

I understand the HSE now intends to implement revised arrangements on 1 March and that it also intends to enter discussions with the IPU on the development of a new substantive pharmacy contract as soon as possible. The Minister is working to develop appropriate arrangements for the deployment of the contracts and for the setting of fees. These arrangements may include the establishment of an independent body which would consider the nature of the service to be provided and all other relevant factors in each case——

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