The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7177 p805-809
8 December 2001

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Consumers excluded from Irish review of pharmacy regulation

A review body set up to examine the regulation of pharmacies in the Irish Republic has run into controversy over the exclusion of consumer representatives.

The Consumers’ Association of Ireland, which has campaigned for years against what it calls the worst monopoly in Europe, has urged Irish Health Minister Michael Martin to rethink the composition of the review body. It believes that restrictions on pharmacies enhance their profitability but are anticompetitive and anticonsumer.

The review follows criticism earlier this year by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that the Irish regulatory regime was too restrictive. It called for the elimination of rules that ban the opening of new pharmacies near existing businesses and which also prevent pharmacists educated in other EU states from setting up in Ireland. Critics claim that these restrictions are anticompetitive and serve to protect the interests and profitability of those who already own pharmacies.

That argument has been reinforced by the entry into the Irish market of the German group GEHE, which has spent about IR£135m in the past six months building up the country’s largest pharmacy network. GEHE now owns 51 Irish pharmacies — 22 more than Boots, the other major pharmacy operator — but would like to increase to 100, according to board member Michael Ward, who is responsible for the company’s Europeam retail operations. Ireland is a good place to do business, he said, with margins similar to those in the Netherlands and better than in the United Kingdom.

The Irish Republic, like the UK, is one of the few countries in Europe to allow multiple ownership of pharmacies. GEHE, which also has 30 per cent of the Irish wholesale market through its ownership of Cahill May Roberts, is barred by German regulations from buying pharmacies in its own country.

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