Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

With regard to the pharmacy Bill, I ask the Leader to reply to a specific question on the problem which has been brewing over the last number of weeks. Small pharmacists are not entitled to major discounts when they buy drugs from wholesalers. Larger chains get bigger discounts; in other words, when they buy one packet of the drugs they dispense they may get one or more packets free from the wholesaler. It has been a long-standing issue within the pharmaceutical trade that small shopkeepers cannot compete with large chains because they do not get the same discounts. In all the debate about the Minister, Deputy Harney, cutting wholesale margins to pharmacists, she has never once alluded to that practice. I ask the Leader to ask the Minister on my behalf to investigate whether the practice can be altered, made more public or made illegal so that all pharmacists can compete on an equal footing and we know exactly what the margins are within the trade. Otherwise a number of pharmacies will go broke regardless of whether the Minister continues her present course of action or changes it radically.

I add my support to the comments of other Members about the Order of Business. We are only paying lip-service to the deaths of innocent people when we treat important legislation on crime in such a dismissive way by rushing it through quickly. Fear, intimidation and violent crime is spreading across our country like a plague and we should try at least to give dignity to the victims of these crimes by having a decent debate in the House on this legislation and not dismissing it in such a cavalier fashion.