Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Minister of State on bringing this legislation through all Stages in the House. I thank the officials involved. It is important legislation. While I would have liked it to go further, we await the report of the expert group. I hope when it is delivered to the Minister in July, he does not sit on it for too long and it is published so we can move forward in utilising and exploiting the huge potential of community pharmacists.

We need a chief pharmacist officer in the Department of Health. There is big demand for that across the board. I had hoped we would move with that when we appointed a Chief Nursing Officer, which made a huge difference. The appointment of the Chief Officer for Health and Social Care Professionals put that profession on the agenda. The same needs to happen in pharmacy.

There is an issue with hospital pharmacists because there is no career structure. It is hard for hospitals to retain pharmacists. Will that be looked at somewhere in the Department? We cannot afford to lose more pharmacists from our hospital system.

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