Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I accept it is not ideal but there are constraints of time.

I thank the Members for a very constructive and informative Committee Stage debate today. It is clear that Members did a considerable amount of work in a short period of time. I was impressed and we had a good debate. There is clearly much interest from the pharmacy profession in this Bill which has been sought for many years. Due to time constraints I am unable to return at this stage with the amendments I have agreed to consider but I will do so in due course.

I thank the Leader of the House for facilitating all Stages of the Bill this week. I thank my officials who are a small group of people sitting behind me. They have been up all night finalising the amendments because I placed a very short timeframe on the work. It is normal to have a longer period of time between Second and Committee Stages but because of time considerations and events that will happen in the summer of this year, time was not available to us.

I also thank the two parliamentary draftsmen who have been involved with this legislation and who will be involved in considering some of the very good amendments put forward. We have already accepted a number of them and the Bill is the stronger for that.

I will check the issue of brother and sister to ensure we are reasonable in what we do.