Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I fully support this motion. Like Deputy Brassil, I declare an interest in that I am a community pharmacist and the holder of a contract with the State, as is my husband. I commend RTE for going to the trouble of exposing this. My concerns as a community pharmacist relate to the fact that various proportions of business are taken up with blister packing or phased dispensing. In my business, it is quite a small proportion but it averages approximately 10%.

Consider the matter of fees increasing by 60%. Deputy Joan Collins has left the Chamber. We probably will not agree on anything else during our time in this House. It seems very unusual that this increase would not have set off a red light somewhere. Irregular trends in dispensing practice should be easily identifiable by the HSE and PCRS. Unless there is a particular reason for these trends, such as spikes with fertility drugs beside fertility clinics or drugs to alleviate symptoms of chemotherapy treatment in pharmacies aligned with certain hospitals, it should be very obvious and easy to identify a problem. The PCRS does just not just get a block of data but very detailed data from the community pharmacists on an electronic system. It is beyond how me this could have gone unnoticed and how there was such a defiant difference between normal levels of activity and what was occurring in these chains.

From my perspective as a community pharmacist, I wish to address the blatant promotion of the service and the model. Obviously, a company must have been engaged to come up with a flowchart explaining to staff how one could go from a fee of €5 to one of €20 for medication. It was very blatant. I would consider it to be a deliberate manipulation of the ethics by which community pharmacists are bound. Blister packing or phased dispensing is a very labour-intensive process. It involves a very robust checking procedure and it is prone to errors. I have vast experience as a community pharmacist given that I was a locum for many years before opening my own business. In my experience, community pharmacists generally do not overly advertise the process. It is something one would do to help a particular patient. The service is essential for many patients, as Deputies Harty and Brassil mentioned. Generally, the patients that require the service are those with specific needs. They may be visually impaired or have intellectual disabilities. They may just be elderly people on multiple medications in respect of whom adherence to a regime is very important.

I do not wish to repeat what every other Member said. Suffice it to say that as a result of this revelation, small community pharmacists - I consider myself to be one - had issues when competing for business during the recession in this country. We were not able to compete. I do not mean to generalise for all community pharmacists. My experience was that we were not able to compete with large multinationals in tendering for business. As a community pharmacist, I looked at the business the large chains were doing and wondered at times what I was doing wrong that I could not attract the business they were attracting. Clearly, they were working on the basis of different profit margins than the rest of us.

It is also noticeable that a particular chain of pharmacies bought up many pharmacies over the past few years and essentially picked off shops that were in financial difficulties. As someone who is completely dedicated in my professional life to being a community pharmacist, I find it very difficult to stomach that in light of these revelations.

Essentially, many community pharmacists were not dealing with a level playing field. I will not go over everything that the Minister has said but there is scope to negotiate, as Deputy Brassil mentioned, a new fee structure in this sector. There is also scope to negotiate with large operators who are benefitting from economies of scale in their businesses. There is definitely scope to save money for taxpayers.

I would like to say to people and carers who are dependent on this method of delivering medicine that my party and my colleagues from similar backgrounds will work to retain this service for people in the community. I would like no older person in the community to be concerned that this vital service will be taken away from him or her.

When one is dealing with taxpayers' money it is absolutely essential that robust checks and balances are in place. Many community pharmacists throughout the country do a lot of work for people on a daily basis. As a professional, it breaks my heart to see other members of the profession being tarred with the same brush.

See this speech in context