Pharmacy staff appeal hour rule

Pharmaceutical assistants have brought a High Court challenge to proposed new rules restricting the amount of time they can cover for a temporarily absent pharmacist to one hour per day.

The Pharmaceutical Assistants Association Company and four women pharmaceutical assistants have brought the case against the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, the minister for health and the State.

Some 248 women, with an average of 35 years experience, say their livelihoods as assistants will be seriously affected or lost if the new rules are approved by the minister. That approval is on hold pending determination of the action.

In a preliminary application, the minister and the State asked the High Court to order that the hearing of the assistants’ case be run as a split trial. Issues of administrative law would be dealt with first then constitutional/ convention issues,the State parties argued.

Mr Justice Anthony Barr refused the minister’s application.