Pharmacies free to mark up gluten-free items

THE Irish Pharmacists’ Union has said it has no control over members who are putting substantial mark- ups on the gluten-free products they sell for coeliac customers.

“The pricing of medicines, including gluten- free products, is a matter for each pharmacist to consider individually. Prices have always varied from pharmacy to pharmacy and the IPU has no input in this,” an IPU spokesperson said.

Coeliac disease is an auto- immune disease that affects one in 100 Irish people.