Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. I suggest that is exactly what we are doing. We have met the IPU and spoken to pharmacists around the country. I tasked the Department with putting together a package of enhanced practice for pharmacists. That includes minor ailments, flu, access to contraception, medicine shortage protocols to enable pharmacists to substitute medications, and so forth. We have a group that is looking at medicines one by one to say which of them would be appropriate for a pharmacist to be able to provide. We are looking around the world, including at the UK. There are training modules being developed at the moment by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, RCSI, for pharmacy prescribing. When they are in place we will want them for undergraduate and graduate training. We will also want them made available for continuous professional development opportunities for pharmacists. I agree with the Deputy's framing but I suggest we are doing exactly that, insofar as we are trying to go quite broad on this and do several of these things at the same time.

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