Michael Mulcahy (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)

A large number of meetings took place with public representatives in various constituencies at which pharmacists vented their feelings. Was the Minister impressed by some of the people who made representations? Many Members are in politics long enough to know when people are genuine, and there is a genuine fear on the part of some small pharmacies that they will go out of business with the introduction of this new scheme. As other Members have said, and I commend the Minister and the HSE in this regard, we must make savings but there is a fear, and we cannot ignore it, that we could create a situation that will result in large pharmacy chains and the end of small pharmacies. Were any studies undertaken by the Department to assess the impact on pharmacies of the introduction of the proposed new scheme? If there were such studies, what did they show to be the results of that impact?

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