Sir, – Prescription drugs can cost from from four to seven times more in the Republic of Ireland compared to Northern Ireland. Sick people are being cheated and this is wrong.
Leo Varadkar has been told he is powerless to change this situation ("Minister told by department officials he has no power to set drug prices", September 6th).
There is something the minister could do – he could permit Irish people to fill their prescriptions by mail order from Northern Ireland. It is already legal to use an Irish prescription in a Northern pharmacy; however, regulations issued by Micheál Martin in 2003 forbid patients from ordering their medicines online. Like other European countries, the UK has a functioning system of regulating and permitting pharmacies to fill prescriptions by mail order, posting the goods to the address on the prescription.
Who are we protecting with this rule? Northern Irish pharmacists may post prescription drugs to their Northern customers, yet their attempts to ship to the South are intercepted at the border. Annually we hear the Irish Medicines Board issuing dire warnings about the threat from drugs ordered on the internet, as if Boots were some kind of drug smuggling outfit.
If Mr Varadkar wishes to give Irish people fair drug prices, he merely needs to wave his ministerial pen and cancel this harmful regulation. – Yours, etc,
Cllr OSSIAN SMYTH,
Montpelier Place,
Monkstown,
Co Dublin.