Pharmacy Services
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-16
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Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (FF), Carlow-Kilkenny

We do need to clarify this. As the Minister said, it will be quarter 1 of 2026. She has said the community pharmacy agreement 2025 does not remove the phased dispensing. We will check what is on that list. The rule changes around phased dispensing were introduced to deal with a situation where significant expenditure was being incurred by the State. It was not intended for purposes outside the contracted arrangements, with limited evidence of effectiveness.
In her statement of 12 December, the Minister noted the community pharmacy sector is under particular pressure at that moment, with an earlier than expected start to the flu season, as we are all aware of now, delivering vaccinations and preparing to establish the new common conditions service, which is really good and I am sure the Senator agrees with that.
The Minister has agreed that the IPU needed to engage further with its membership to clarify the situation and that the community pharmacists need to do further work with their patients, especially their most vulnerable patients, to clarify the supports available to them and determine the best way of safely complying with their medicine-dosage regime.
It is important we clarify the information. I assure the Senator the Minister will come back to her on this.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-16