The Government is to lift a 130-year-old ban on pharmacists trained outside Ireland owning, operating or supervising a pharmacy, Minister for Health Mary Harney announced yesterday.
The Minister also announced the establishment of a regulatory council for the sector, largely composed of representatives of the pharmaceutical and medical profession. There will be no consumer representation on the council.
The Government is to introduce a Bill which aims to overhaul the pharmaceutical sector in Ireland.
The Pharmacy Act of 1962, which is to be repealed if the new Bill passes, banned pharmacists trained outside the State from practising here.
The Minister said that removing the ban would be welcomed by Irish pharmacists who graduated abroad.
While welcoming the proposed Bill, the Irish Pharmaceutical Union (IPU) yesterday called on the Minister to ensure that similar bans operating in other countries on Irish-trained pharmacists were lifted beforehand.
Under the Bill, the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland will continue to control entry into the sector, but the society's council will no longer include a majority of pharmacists.
A prospective pharmacist's fitness to practise will be determined by a new 21-member council, nine of whom will be pharmacists and the remainder of whom will be "non-elected lay persons".
The mandate of the council will be to ensure that pharmacy outlets adhere to adequate "standards" and that their owners possess adequate linguistic skills.
Ms Harney said the council's composition would make regulation of the sector more accountable.
"We are the first country to go for a lay majority on such a council . . . these are unique developments," the Minister said yesterday.
However, she added that it might "not be in the public interest" to conduct all of the council's business in public.
"We have to be pragmatic and sensible," she said.
Ms Harney said the Bill would be debated in the Dáil on March 22nd and 23rd, and she believed that it would be law by Easter.
"I look forward to the Opposition supporting the urgency of enacting this Bill," Ms Harney said.
A Fine Gael spokesman said that the party broadly welcomed the Bill, which it said would secure safety for consumers. But he said the Minister had rushed the legislation.
The Bill was welcomed by the IPU. "It is urgent because Ireland has the most liberal pharmacy market in Europe and anybody can open a pharmacy," its vice-president Liz Hoctor said.
But Ms Hoctor added that the Bill's provisions would place an unfair burden on Irish pharmacies compared to those operating in EU countries.
"A pharmacist from any other EU jurisdiction can establish a pharmacy here in Ireland, but I or any of my colleagues cannot open a pharmacy in Belfast, Berlin, Paris or in any other EU country because of regulations in these jurisdictions."