Results 13,301-13,320 of 24,635 for speaker:Mary Harney

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: The Deputies have asked many questions. Deputy Connaughton asked how this differs from the situation with the consultants. First, the consultants are our own employees. Therefore, competition law does not interface when an employer negotiates with an employee.

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: That is the reality. An employer can negotiate with his or her own employees. The issue under competition law ——

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: Of course I do. I made the point earlier that we want to negotiate a new contract with the IPU, with pharmacists, but the pricing of that contract ——

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: The pricing of that contract ——

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: We must negotiate the contract. Hopefully ——

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: Hopefully we will reach agreement on a new contract and then we are required, under competition law, to have that independently priced. Unless we get agreement on the new contract, there is no point in establishing a pricing mechanism.

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: The people who will be the chief beneficiaries from an increased dispensing fee — and what is on offer at the moment is a 70% increase for the GMS — are those pharmacies that are very heavily dependent on GMS and those pharmacies in rural communities ——

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: —— that have very low volumes of turnover. That is a fact. They will ——

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: Deputy Mulcahy asked if I have been impressed with the presentations made. I have, for many years, felt very uneasy when young pharmacists approached me to tell me that because they could not get into pharmacy school in Ireland and had to go abroad to qualify, they could not open a pharmacy here. I spent many years campaigning to change that situation. That has changed now.

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: I am usually accused in this House of being too pro-enterprise. These are entrepreneurs and business people. They have established businesses and have entered into their arrangements ——

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: My concern, as Minister for Health and Children, is the contract that the HSE has with pharmacists for the professional service they provide. That contract, paid by way of dispensing fees in 2007, cost €367 million and no money is being taken off that. On the contrary, we are offering a 70% increase for GMS dispensing. Pharmacists have varying discount arrangements with wholesalers. I...

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: The HSE is not a party to that either. The HSE set out in good faith with the Department to negotiate with the manufacturers, the producers of medicine and to then negotiate with wholesalers, even though we do not have a contract with them. Clearly, we are concerned about the cost of delivering the product. There is nowhere in the world where it costs €600 million to get medicine to...

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: Nobody could justify, and the Brennan commission was very critical of the 50% mark up ——

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: Nobody could justify that it costs €600 million to provide €1 billion worth of medicines to patients.

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: The patients are not getting ——

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: —— a good deal out of that and neither is the taxpayer. That is my concern. Deputy Moloney asked how the three members were selected. They were selected by me following a conversation I had with the Secretary General of the Department and one of my advisers. They are people I know professionally and for whom I have a high regard. They know what it takes to make business function...

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: There is no doubt that Mr. Seán Dorgan and Mr. Mark Moran are well aware of what it takes to keep a business functioning. What I and the Government want to see is a vibrant ——

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: —— community pharmacy sector. I do not have any data on the age profile. I met a young woman in Dublin recently, who was probably in her early 30s, who told me she had 14 pharmacies. A young, Irish woman who is a pharmacist, working in this city ——

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: I am simply telling Deputies.

Pharmaceutical Pricing: Statements (28 Feb 2008)

Mary Harney: I am just telling Deputies. She is one of the young people to whom they referred.