Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)

I thank the Minister for the reply. At the heart of this mess are women on HRT and the women who could be on it. For non-GMS patients, the cost is €35 to €70 per month. This is a serious amount of money for many women. I am hugely passionate about this scheme but this crack of announcing first and working out the details later is simply unacceptable. There are four key issues here, the first of which is the lack of HRT. We want to give out free HRT and yet we know there are enormous stock shortages in the system. Pharmacists now are having to seek out unlicensed medicines, which are not recognised with the primary care reimbursement service, PCRS, and costing on average €15.90 while the GMS is only paying €6.47. It is either the patient or the chemist who will have to absorb that greater cost. This is going on right across the country at this point in time. The second issue is the IT system. I do not know if the Minister has looked at this but there is a key issue about adding that into the software. There has been no information to date on that. The third issue is co-operation with the sector. With the greatest of respect to the Minister, the effective use of power means sitting down and talking. Going on to Joe Duffy to issue a diktat is not how to go about it. The Department has-----

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