The rollout of the Government’s free HRT scheme next month will be on the agenda at the Irish Pharmacy Union Conference today.

Speaking to Newstalk on the issue yesterday, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said she hopes the union recommend their members sign up to the initiative.

“I offered the IPU two options, one was the €5 for the dispensing fee, which would make it completely free for women,” she said.

An already open HRT, Hormone Therapy Replacement pills in dispenser for perimenopause treatment. Image by Alamy.

“But I did give them another offer, which was that they could continue to charge whatever dispensing fee they wanted to, whether that was five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten euros, they could continue to charge that.

“I would give them €3,000 to sign up to it and then the medication would be free for women.”

However, both of those options were rejected by the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU).

Union president Tom Murray told Newstalk Breakfast that the Minister is “well aware that we cannot endorse the free HRT scheme”.

“The original proposal from the Government, and indeed the second proposal the Minister talked about there, is not free HRT – it's free product,” he said.

“But the women of Ireland would still have to pay their dispensing fees.”

According to Mr Murray, while the Government has set a dispensing fee of €5, the breakeven point for the sector is actually €6.50, meaning pharmacies would run the scheme at a loss.

“The State owns 87% of my business as it currently stands through the community drug schemes and I subsidise that with the other 13% of my business,” he said.

“What the State is asking me to do is to take on another loss-making service on behalf of the State.”

Mr Murray said the IPU’s conference will also cover future pharmacy services and potential investments, among other things.

Main image: A woman applies an oestrogen patch. Image: Phanie / Alamy Stock Photo