Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I seek the adjournment of the Dáil under Standing Order 32 to discuss the following matter of national importance requiring urgent consideration, namely, the threatened collapse of the general medical services scheme and related State schemes for the supply of medicines from 1 May if pharmacists implement their decision to withdraw from these schemes; the threatened legal action against pharmacists arising from this withdrawal; the role of the Minister for Health and Children and the HSE in escalating the dispute; and, above all, the threat to the health and safety of patients posed by this imminent collapse of schemes on which hundreds of thousands of people, many of them elderly, rely.

See this speech in context