A €75 million new investment across 2025 and 2026 will ensure that community pharmacists are better equipped to contribute to national health priorities supporting the delivery of safe, equitable, and efficient healthcare , according to the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill.
The Minister was speaking at the publication of the Community Pharmacy Agreement 2025, following the successful conclusion of negotiations with the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) last week. “This landmark agreement supports the delivery of safe, equitable, and efficient healthcare, and ensures that community pharmacists are better equipped to contribute to national health priorities through structured engagement, sustainable funding, and integrated service delivery. The agreement is supported by a €75 million new investment across 2025 and 2026, said the Department of Health.
Key features of the Agreement include:
- Expanded Services: Community pharmacies will play a greater role in contraception, immunisation, bowel screening, and the safe return and disposal of unused medicines.
- Digital Integration: Pharmacies will actively support national eHealth reforms, including the National e-Prescription Service and National Electronic Health Record.
- New Funding: €25 million in 2025 and €50 million in 2026 will support fee adjustments, service development, and training.
- Strategic Collaboration: A new collaborative framework will be established to support the shaping and implementation of community pharmacy services.
The Agreement also introduces new fees and allowances for participating pharmacies, supports the training and development of pharmacy teams, and a programme of work aimed at reducing administrative burdens on community pharmacies.
In 2026, community pharmacy will provide new services:
Bowel Screening
Community pharmacists and their teams, as trusted healthcare professionals, can play an important role in supporting increased uptake of the BowelScreen Programme through promoting the programme at population level as well as enhancing access by supporting individuals to participate in the programme. Pharmacies will be enabled to identify eligible patients based on age, to invite the person to participate in the programme, register them on the programme and order a FIT (Faecal Immunochemical Test) kit with a view to improving uptake of screening.
Oral Contraception Prescription Continuation
The continued supply of short-acting reversible contraception by community pharmacists is currently being progressed by the Community Pharmacy Expansion Implementation Oversight Group. This will allow community pharmacists to conduct a clinical consultation with a patient and, where appropriate, continue a prescription for short acting reversible contraception in line with nationally developed protocols and associated regulatory and operational requirements.
The National Condom Distribution Service (NCDS)
This service distributes free condoms and lubricant sachets to services working directly with population groups who may be at increased risk of unplanned pregnancy, HIV or STIs. The service will be expanded to community pharmacies which will identify individuals who may be at an increased risk of experiencing a sexually transmitted infection or an unplanned pregnancy and provide them with advice, support and access to free condoms/lubricants within clinical consultations.
Common Conditions Service
Pharmacies will be enabled to establish the Common Conditions Service from late 2025 into early 2026. It will be a fee-paying service, with pharmacies entitled to charge a consultation fee. However, medicines will be reimbursed by the State in line with Community Drugs Schemes. This service will enable community pharmacists to manage common conditions by offering self-care advice, safety-netting, and, when appropriate, supplying certain over the counter (OTC) medicine(s) and prescribing prescription-only medicine(s) (POMs) through established protocols.
Unused Medicines Return and Disposal
A new national service will be established in 2026 which will enable patients to return their unused medicines to their local community pharmacy.
Immunisation Programmes
Community pharmacists now administer one in every three vaccinations under the influenza and COVID-19 vaccination programmes. To support the increased uptake of pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPV23), it has been agreed, commencing later this year, that community pharmacists will administer the PPV23 vaccine to healthy over 65-year-olds.
In 2025, up to €25 million in new investment will be made into community pharmacy which, for those community pharmacies that opt into the Agreement, will consist of once-off grants, and an increase in the standard dispensing fees payable under the General Medical Services (GMS) Scheme, the Drug Payment Scheme (DPS), the Long-Term Illness Scheme (LTI), the European Economic Area Scheme and the Health (Amendment) Act 1996 Scheme. This investment will continue into 2026, whereby new investment of €50 million will be made to community pharmacy, also through a range of new grants/supports and the increase in standard dispensing fees.
