Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank colleagues for their support in passing the Bill. As they have said, it does a number of important things. It provides an income disregard of €14,000 from medical assessment for anyone who wants to use the rent-a-room scheme so that should increase, maybe in a modest way, the provision of those who want to rent out their rooms, which we all know will help.

The Bill also makes it easier for medicine substitution. It will give end-to-end oversight of where there are blockages and shortages, which is something we currently do not have. It will allow pharmacists, under regulations and protocols, to substitute medicines when we have a shortage. Global supply chains are tightening so this will be used more and more into the future. It broadens and clarifies those who can vaccinate. We did this during Covid. It gives clarity to all of that, which will help as well. As we have been discussing, the Bill, in terms of the future role of pharmacists in our country, is a pivotal moment. The Government has been pursuing a policy of enhanced community pharmacy. We already have powers that allow certain prescriptions to be extended and pharmacists can become involved in more complex prescription, under multidisciplinary teams. This will allow them to prescribe for common conditions and it is the beginning of a new role for pharmacists in Ireland. I have always been of the view that pharmacists who are incredibly highly trained, dedicated healthcare professionals, want to and can do a lot more than they are allowed to do at present. For community pharmacists in particular, this is the law that many of them have been waiting for to allow them to get on with this. For the public, it will mean that people can get access to superb healthcare closer to home, in their village, town or city. For the GPs, it means there will be a shift of some of the work, which is very important for people to be able to access GP services more and more regularly.

I want to thank some people. I thank community pharmacists and the Irish Pharmacy Union, IPU, for their work. We have had a really constructive engagement with community pharmacists and their representative body. The regulator has been fantastic as well. I also want to thank the task force chaired by Professor Pat O'Mahony. He has done a phenomenal job. The task force has been fantastic. I met him today at the final meeting of the task force. The energy, purpose and determination in the room to expand the role of pharmacy was infectious and fantastic to see. It has done in a matter of months things that take years in other parts of the service. I thank the task force for pushing the speed of this project. I also thank my officials in the Department and their HSE counterparts, who have worked really hard on this. It has come across as quite simple legislation today but, in fact, there is a lot of complexity, clinical oversight, protocols and expertise has been brought in. I thank everyone involved. This is a statement of intent from the Government regarding the future role of pharmacy, giving it a bigger role and more access for the public to expert healthcare professionals, closer to home.