Áine Mac Grory gives her take on the grim statistics in the IPU Crime Survey
I recently had the pleasure of attending The Natural Health Trade Summit Ireland 2025, which I highly recommend. There were a number of round-table talks during the day, all of which I enjoyed — but there is one in particular that stuck out. A chartered accountant who used a leaky bucket as an excellent analogy for the ways in which your business might be losing money. When they opened the floor for group discussion, there was one section which sparked the most engagement. That word? Crime.
The frustration in the room was palpable.
For me, the topic created an instant flashback to the week just before on a Tuesday afternoon, when I heard a yelp and then, silence. A frantic patient was pointing at shelves that had just been emptied. The culprit was still in eyesight but getting smaller by the second. Do I chase? Do I shout? Do I call An Garda Síochána? Sorry — this is a serious matter, I shouldn’t be making jokes.
Back to the serious options and the one I eventually chose. I decided to let them walk and swallow another €500 loss on top of the thousands already lost this year. Defeated and without much more consideration, I carry on with my prescription preparation.
This is pharmacy in 2025. We are no longer just healthcare professionals, but unwilling players in a never-ending crime spree.
The Irish Pharmacy Union’s (IPU) Crime Survey this year makes for grim — but not shocking — reading. Almost nine-in-10 pharmacies (some 89 per cent) have reported being the victim of crime in the last 12 months. That’s nearly all of us. Every counter, every team, every town. For the 10 per cent outlier, if you are reading this, please get in touch and tell me what’s your secret!
When I speak of crime, it’s not the odd packet of paracetamol slipping into a pocket. Shoplifting accounts for 96 per cent of incidents, with cosmetics, fragrances, supplements, and yes, fake tan, topping the hit list. But that’s not the whole story.
- 14 per cent of incidents involved a weapon — knives, syringes, even guns;
- 36 per cent of incidents were described as violent;
- 59 per cent of pharmacies were targeted repeatedly by the same individuals. And in the cruellest twist of irony, 91 per cent of crimes happen during business hours, with patients queuing, children in tow, and staff just trying to get through the day.
The average pharmacy now loses €4,500 a year to crime and spends another €5,300 on security CCTV, alarms, static guards, and tagging systems. That’s nearly €10,000 gone annually before you even count the emotional toll. I, personally, am resigned to the whole thing. I include shrinkage in my annual business forecast and move on. The other team members? They struggle to stop their blood from boiling. The injustice of it all. I get it and, not surprisingly, 56 per cent of pharmacy staff get it too.
The IPU Crime Survey captures the gravity of the situation statistically speaking, but it doesn’t tell you about the look in your team member’s eyes when they’re left shaking after a confrontation.
It doesn’t explain what it’s like to reassure a terrified Saturday girl after her first weekend shift turned into a shouting match with someone demanding benzodiazepines we weren’t authorised to dispense.
Crime has faces. It’s the man who comes in weekly, swipes supplements, and laughs as he walks out, daring us to follow. It’s the young woman screaming “you forget I know where you live” after being asked not to open product boxes. It’s the patient who suddenly becomes an assailant when told their prescription isn’t ready.
And it’s the gardaí who saunter in hours or sometimes days later, if at all, and unphased — as I myself have become over the years.
Why we don’t report
On paper, 69 per cent of crimes are reported to the gardaí according to the IPU’s Crime Survey. But in practice, it feels like less.
We know the cycle. You take time off to go to court, the accused doesn’t show, the case gets adjourned, and months later they plead guilty to 20 offences and walk out with a suspended sentence. Meanwhile, you’re down a day’s work, staff morale is through the floor, and the shelves are still empty where the stock should be.
It’s hard not to feel like you’re screaming into a void. No wonder 62 per cent of pharmacists said crimes seemed too trivial to report, and 58 per cent had no faith in prosecution.
When people think of pharmacy crime, they think of stock losses or smashed windows. But the hidden costs are worse. It’s the staff member who quietly hands in their notice because the job isn’t worth the anxiety anymore. Or it’s the younger pharmacist who decides hospital work looks safer, even if it means less patient interaction. It’s the small independent owner wondering if shutters and security guards will eat the last of their margins.
The man who walked out with two shelves of stock never looked back. Why would he? He knows the odds are in his favour
And it’s me, lying awake at 3am, replaying the day and wondering what I could have done differently. Should I have stepped in? Should I have stayed back? Should I have called the gardaí earlier? Should I have even opened the pharmacy in this area?
That’s not just financial loss. That’s erosion of spirit.
The 230 participants were clear on what they believe will help:
- More visible policing — 89 per cent of us believe this would reduce crime;
- Tougher sentencing — 91 per cent want stricter penalties that actually deter;
- Faster Garda response — because when someone storms out with €500 worth of stock, ‘call us back if they come again’ just isn’t good enough.
Pharmacists don’t expect miracles. They don’t expect gardaí on every corner. But they do expect recognition that crimes against pharmacies are not petty retail losses. They’re direct threats to community healthcare.
When pharmacies close, even temporarily, patients lose access to essential medicines, advice, and urgent care. That’s not just an inconvenience — that’s a public health risk.
Still, we keep opening our doors. We keep counselling, dispensing, vaccinating, checking interactions, catching errors before they reach patients. We keep showing up.
And yet, crime has changed us. I catch myself scanning customers more than stock. I notice where people’s hands are. I watch the door, the mirrors, the angles of shelves. I’ve become part-pharmacist, part-surveillance officer.
I hate that. I hate that a profession built on trust has been forced into suspicion. I don’t want this article to be just another lament. Because while the statistics are frightening, they aren’t destiny. They are a call to act.
We need:
- Gardaí resourced properly to respond to retail crime;
- Courts that treat pharmacy crime with the seriousness it deserves;
- Support services for staff traumatised by incidents;
- Funding or grants to help small pharmacies cover security costs.
And we need solidarity from patients, from the public, from policy-makers. Pharmacies are not faceless shops, they are lifelines. When crime threatens them, it threatens us all.
The man who walked out with two shelves of stock never looked back. Why would he? He knows the odds are in his favour. But for us, every theft lingers. It’s not just the missing stock, it’s a crack in the trust, a blow to the morale, another reason to wonder how long we can keep this up.
Community pharmacy is supposed to be about care, advice, and accessibility. Not alarms, guards, and trauma.
The survey results don’t surprise me anymore. They simply confirm what I live every day — that we are under siege, not by illness, but by crime.
And while we keep dispensing medicines, I can’t help but wonder, who will dispense justice for us?
Áine is a Superintendent Pharmacist and pharmacy owner with over 18 years of experience working in community pharmacies across Ireland. In 2014, she earned her Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) degree in the UK. Her career journey has encompassed a variety of roles, including locum, support, and supervising, culminating in her recent transition to pharmacy ownership. She is deeply committed to upholding the integrity and vital role of community pharmacy in Ireland, combining her extensive experience with a passion for patient care and professional excellence.
