Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to reiterate what my colleague has just said. It is strange that the Minister has not received the draft rules, given that this matter has received quite an amount of traction. Like Deputy Cahill, I would like representatives of the PSI to come before the Joint Committee on Health to explain where they are coming from with this idea. Many pharmacists are already struggling to get enough cover to keep their pharmacies open and to provide traditional services to their customers. I understand that the youngest pharmaceutical assistant in the country is 56 years of age. This means that all pharmaceutical assistants will have been phased out nine years from now because they will all have reached the retirement age, or ten or 11 years from now if the retirement age has increased. I estimate that 99% of pharmaceutical assistants are women. Common sense needs to prevail here. These people have provided valuable services to their communities. The knowledge and experience they have gleaned over many years should not been thrown aside because of an over-zealous desire to regulate.

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