Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has accused some pharmacies of wrongly claiming fees from the State for dispensing blister-pack medication.
There has never been a State-funded scheme for the packs, she said, and added that pharmacies claimed the fees “under a very different scheme”.
The Minister spoke with the regulator on Tuesday. She said this will be followed “immediately [with] an analysis by the PCRS (Primary Care Re-imbursement Service) which the regulator may be involved with”.
Ms Carroll MacNeill said there had been two sets of litigation about the issue, “which the State won on both occasions”.
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She was speaking during a debate following a Sinn Féin private members’ motion on the issue. The controversy erupted last week after the Dáil heard some patients getting blister packs would face charges of €20-€50 from January, 2026.
Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane accused the Minister, however, of having “no empathy” for patients who are “now left high and dry”.
He said people using blister packs are “very vulnerable patients”, adding: “The vast majority of them are older people, over the age of 65.” They include, he said, people with dementia, disabilities and people with a range of health needs.
Under changes as part of the new community pharmacy agreement, pharmacies were due to change the way phased dispensing arrangement operates, in which patients received smaller quantities of their medication to support safe use.
The changes to the charges for blister packs, also known as “monitored dosage systems” – preformed plastic packaging outlining daily doses of certain drugs – have been paused until the end of the first quarter of next year.
Ms Carroll MacNeill said the analysis will look at phased dispensing claims made to the HSE “within a specific time frame” with a “suitably targeted probity process”. She said action, as appropriate, would be determined by the regulator.
There were three categories of people using blister packs, she said. Some patients have already been paying €10 and €20 for blister packs for some time. “The fact is this is a private service and has always been a private service, never funded by the State.”
A second group “have been getting blister packs for free, because their pharmacist is giving it to them for free”, she said.
The third group have been receiving their blister packs for free but pharmacists have been “charging the Irish State under a different heading”, under “the phased dispensing scheme, which is a very different scheme”, she outlined.
“Charging like that is wrong, it is inappropriate, it is contrary to the numerous circulars that the HSE issued,” the Minister said.
She added: “We cannot have any profession using taxpayers’ money in a way that has not been allocated, especially where that has been repeatedly communicated to them.”
She said it was an issue that “may have been inflated by those people who might have an incentive to cover what was done in the past and create very scary figures for private services for the future”.
Mr Cullinane said there was nothing radical in the State paying for vulnerable patients. He said he had warned the Government of this “glaring omission” in October when the new community pharmacy agreement was put in place. He said he knew it would become an issue.
Party colleague Denise Mitchell said the reason the Government has paused the changes is “because the Government has been taken aback by just how upset the public are over this and particularly our older citizens”.
