Welcome to your October issue, in which we cover a range of topics of interest, on a variety of facets of working in a modern Irish pharmacy.
One of the issues that is close to everybody’s heart is pharmacy crime, and this is discussed by your columnist Áine Mac Grory. The findings of the IPU Pharmacy Crime Survey 2025 are disturbing — we seem to say that every year, don’t we.
The statistics are widely reported and Áine drills a little deeper into them. However, in it, she also describes the consequences of being a victim of crime on a personal level. This is the stuff that can’t be quantified, but is the most important consequence of pharmacy crime. Cash and products can be replaced, but the feelings of fear and helplessness are harder to negate than a material loss.
From the account of Áine, and others like her, it becomes clear that pharmacists are being bullied into accepting crime and the threat of physical violence as some kind of collateral damage to be suffered in the line of duty. There really aren’t many other professions where this is expected — a soldier or a guard, perhaps. Pharmacists should not fit into that category.
At least soldiers can fight back.
Is this rise in pharmacy crime an international phenomenon, or is Ireland an outlier? Figures from the National Pharmacy Association in the UK this year also show an increase in shoplifting and aggressive behaviour in pharmacies, with nine-in-10 reporting an increase in both categories.
It’s also a safe bet that the perpetrators in both jurisdictions are predominantly intoxicated, perhaps psychologically unwell, or both. But they are usually not too intoxicated to know their rights.
These folks know exactly when they can or cannot be physically touched, the usual Garda response time, and all the other details that allow them to stroll out of the pharmacy with your merchandise. And in the UK, as in Ireland, there are calls for stricter sentencing when the perpetrators are actually arrested, and for pharmacy crime to be taken seriously by the judiciary.
Minister Carroll MacNeill is making efforts to win the hearts and minds of pharmacists. She would do well to make a big deal of pharmacy crime.
Pat Kelly, pat@greenx.ie
