The Irish pharmacy market has gone through a bit of a shake-up in the past few years - the main event being the arrival of Boots after it bought out one of the State's most venerable retail names, Hayes Conyngham & Robinson for around £13 million (€16.5 million).

The traditional Irish pharmacy, where an avuncular elderly gent dispenses pills while doling out the barley sugar sticks to the kids, has disappeared. Now your brightly lit pharmacy will probably generate as much if not more revenue from the racks of overpriced cosmetics on its shelves than it will from medications. Boots knew well the underdeveloped state of the Irish pharmacy industry when it bought HCR and began a rapid expansion. Now it seems that another British giant, Alliance Unichem - which operates under the Ross Chemist brand in Britain - has its eyes on the Republic after chief executive Jeff Harris told Reuters that he is looking at liberalised markets where the group is not represented, including Ireland. We await developments.