Pharmacy Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-22
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Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (FG), Dún Laoghaire

I really have to address the language here first of all. There is no policy to reverse because nothing has changed. The basic facts are that nothing has changed and therefore nothing can be reversed. While the Deputy and I believe that and I totally understand the reasons for that, the science does not support that. The more important thing from the State's perspective is the degree to which this service was being used incorrectly by some, not all, pharmacists for their own financial benefit. That is what this State and this House must have an interest in. There are people who have always paid for blister packs charged by their pharmacy for convenience and for lots of different reasons as set out by the GP. There are those who have been getting blister packs for free from their pharmacy and have never been charged, and the pharmacist is simply doing this to support them in different ways. There are also people who were receiving blister packs free of charge but the pharmacist was incorrectly charging the State under the phased dispensing scheme for something that was not appropriate, not allowed and not legitimate.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:32+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-22