John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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787. To ask the Minister for Health if she will address the 16-year-old dispensing fee pay-freeze to pharmacies by adjusting the community drug scheme dispensing fee to €6.50. [5997/25]

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I recognise the significant role community pharmacists play in the delivery of patient care and acknowledge the potential for this role to be developed further in the context of healthcare service reform. Pharmacists play a crucial role delivering many important services to support the health of our communities, offering expert advice, ensuring the safe supply of medicines, and delivering vaccines to the public. They are also among the most accessible healthcare professionals nationwide.

There has been ongoing engagement between Department officials and the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) regarding the potential to extend the scope of practice of community pharmacists and the enablers needed to implement that.

My Department has been carrying out a comprehensive review of the pharmacy fee structure in the context of this engagement and the intended expansion of the scope of pharmacy practice, following the recommendations of the Expert Taskforce to Support the Expansion of the Role of Pharmacy. The State invests a considerable amount of funding in community pharmacy each year.

Building on these strong foundations, I believe that pharmacists can do more for our health service and I want to see an expansion of the services offered by pharmacists. This ambition is reflected in the commitments and priorities set out in the new Programme for Government: Securing Ireland’s Future.

I look forward to working closely with the sector in 2025, including advancing engagements between my Department and the HSE with the IPU, as the representative body for community pharmacists, in relation to the community pharmacy contract and associated enablers.

I believe that there is a real opportunity to work collaboratively to make a significant difference to patient outcomes. Of course, any publicly funded pharmacy service expansion should address unmet public healthcare needs, improve access to existing public health services, deliver better patient outcomes, and provide better value for money.