Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I am tempted to use my time to debate with the Minister about the relationship between economic growth and the underprovision of medical cards, but I will not. Perhaps I will have another opportunity to do so. It is one of the great failures of the Government but it is not for tonight's debate.

As a member of one self-regulating profession married to a member of another self-regulating profession I am aware that the public is more than a little sceptical about the degree to which professions are allowed, encouraged or enabled to regulate themselves. However, subject to a number of the caveats I will make, I do not think an alternative exists other than having peer group reviews of standards, performance and quality. The mass of regulation and bureaucracy necessary to regulate professions is enormous.

Some of the distinctions between professions and trades have been lost because of the upskilling of trades. However, we do not have a similar self-regulatory format for trades. The trade unions are neither willing nor able to do it. I am wary of self-regulating professions. A more extreme example is not the pharmacy, medical or engineering professions but another eminent profession divided in two — I will put it like that and not state any more — which is not a great advertisement for self-regulation. There is an enormous capacity to define the public interest as the barrister's interest, for example, and anything that threatens their position is always a threat to at least one of the institutions of State, if not more. That is the language used.

The Bill is very welcome but I would begrudgingly say it is a little late. I met representatives of the pharmacy profession about a year ago and there appears to be a degree to which underperforming pharmacists, to put it generously, are poorly regulated, if not unregulated. It is almost impossible to prevent somebody not fit to practise from continuing to work, which is alarming. It has been to the credit of the profession that by informal means, if not others, it managed to dissuade the more badly performing members from continuing to practise when it did not have the powers to do so. The Bill is welcome in that regard.

We must recognise that the practice of pharmacy is entirely different now from what it was 25 or 30 years ago. The days of pharmacists making up medicines and putting together individual ingredients are part of history. They have instead become the gatekeeper between the medical profession and the public, as they are a point of referral in both directions and a point of quality assurance. My other half would not thank me for suggesting pharmacists have a role in checking the inadequacies of the medical profession but pharmacists might take a different view of doctors also. Nevertheless, they have a major role to play.

It should also be said the profession has changed. For all my childhood and until recently in my adult life, pharmacies were run by one person or a family. They were very much part of a local community; even in cities this was true. They have now, essentially, become part of multinational organisations which bring with them both advantages and disadvantages. They bring advantages of scale and capacity in having a range of products and perhaps expertise. That is the good side but the bad side is that they remove the personal aspect such as knowledge of families, the history of individuals, the relationship with doctors and familiarity with the styles and prescribing patterns of doctors. This is particularly evident outside the big cities where it perhaps never occurred. It is lost with multinationals because their capacity to be more efficient is based, to a degree, on homogenisation. The Bill genuinely endeavours to grapple with the issue but it is very difficult to provide for the same regulation of a profession which was based on an individual owning an individual pharmacy and which now has most of its professionals as employees of a multinational. We must read it carefully. That is the reason I wish we had more time to deal with it. I do not wish to start an argument but we are trying to regulate the profession. Nominally what is being said is the same but there are different organisations.

There is a third role for pharmacists which does not arise in this instance but of which I would be aware. In the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals there are international regulations relating to having qualified pharmacists involved in the production process. I would have liked to pursue that issue. That said, the legislation is welcome.

I have dealt with the issues of regulation and registration. Another area of importance is the professional qualifications directive, etc. I wish to make a related point to the Minister and the House in general. This legislation, like all legislation, contains a list of Acts. I am almost fed up making this point after 25 years. Although it is 50 years since the first of the European treaties was signed, we still do not have a similar part indicating related European directives. Some 70% of our legislation originates either directly or indirectly from within the European Union, yet we still pretend it is all our own. I cannot pick up a piece of legislation and see which directives of the European Union it may well refer to. I knew a directive was referred to in this Bill but I had to search through it to find the reference. I would be put to the pin of my collar to find a copy of the directive and put further to it to even understand it. Whatever about our legislation, European directives are profoundly difficult. I believe they are written by people determined to ensure the rest of us do not understand what they are doing. The directives are difficult to comprehend.

I ask the same question raised by other Members as to why the mutual recognition of qualifications at the core of this matter does not apply in both directions.