Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Health (Amendment) (No 2) Act 2010 provides that a person who is supplied with a drug, medicine or medical or surgical appliance on the prescription of a registered medical practitioner, registered dentist or registered nurse prescriber shall be charged a prescription charge per item, subject to a limit per family per month and that this charge will be recouped from payment to the pharmacist.

Since 1 January 2013, the charge per item is €1.50, subject to a maximum amount payable by a person and his or her dependants of €19.50 in any one month. Prescription charges are part of a set of reforms introduced by Government in recent years to reduce pharmaceutical prices and expenditure. These include reductions in drug prices, reductions in fees paid to pharmacists under the FEMPI legislation and the introduction of generic substitution and reference pricing.

As announced in budget 2014, it has become necessary to increase the prescription charge due to the very difficult and challenging economic environment which requires the Government to achieve additional savings in health expenditure, with €666 million in savings targeted in 2014. The increase in prescription charges will account for €43 million of this target. The Government is committed to achieving these savings while protecting front-line services to the most vulnerable to the greatest extent possible. Medical card holders will be required to pay a €2.50 charge per item for medicines and other prescription items supplied to them by community pharmacists, subject to a cap of €25 per month for each person or family. These new rates will be effective from 1 December 2013.

For the purposes of applying the charge, a spouse or a cohabiting partner, children under 16 and children aged over 16 and under 21 who are in full-time education and wholly or mainly maintained by another adult person who has full eligibility will constitute a family for the purposes of applying the charges. There are a limited number of exemptions from prescription charges. First, children who are in the care of the Health Service Executive under the Child Care Acts 1991 to 2007 are exempt. All other GMS clients will be subject to prescription charges. Second, the supply of methadone to opiate dependent clients is exempt. Methadone clients will be required to pay the charge on prescription items other than methadone. The supply of methadone for non-opiate dependent clients is not exempted. Third, as the supply of high tech medicines operates on the basis of a patient care fee, a prescription charge will not apply.

The legislation does not provide for an exemption from the prescription charges for any particular category of drugs, medicines or medical and surgical appliance. The three areas of exemption to which I referred are referable to particular categories of individuals rather than to drugs, medicines or medical or surgical appliances. There are no plans to provide for this category of exemption.

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