Health (Provision of Contraception Prescribing Service in Retail Pharmacy Businesses) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-15
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Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (FG), Dún Laoghaire

I move amendment No. 3:
In page 4, lines 26 and 27, to delete “or medical device”.
We have a number of Government amendments to the Bill which collectively remove a reference to a medical device or devices from the Bill. Our pharmacy regulators, the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland and the Health Products Regulatory Authority, HPRA, have been able to confirm to me that none of the contraceptives to be included in the pharmacy scheme are classified as medical devices.
Amendments Nos. 3 to 5, inclusive, essentially look to remove the reference to medical devices. Amendment No. 4 removes references to medical devices from the proposed amendments to the Pharmacy Act 2007. To recap, sections 2 and 3 amend the Irish Medicines Board Act 1995 and the Pharmacy Act 2007 in order to support the clinical service and associated training requirements that must be fulfilled to provide the contraception-prescribing service. Those sections ensure that the scheme is clearly enabled and cross-referenced through a refreshed legislative framework supporting pharmacy prescription of contraception.
Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 are to delete the references to medical devices within the Long Title. As I said, both of our regulators have asked that references to medical devices be removed. As stated last week, the current forms of contraception that will be included in the pharmacy prescription services are the contraceptive pill, the patch and the ring. Those are medicinal products and not medical devices. I hope the House is happy with those changes, which are largely technical in nature.

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Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-15