A Co Clare doctor who was struck off the Register of Medical Practitioners after he was convicted of supplying a prescription-only drug by mail order successfully appealed a three-month suspended jail sentence yesterday.
Dr Paschal Carmody (57), from Killaloe, was fined €600 and given a three-month suspended jail sentence last year after he pleaded guilty to charges relating to the supply of medicinal products that should be made available only through a prescription.
Dr Carmody appealed against the severity of the sentence at Limerick Circuit Court yesterday. During the appeal the court heard evidence that a Co Westmeath woman had bought a drug, Peviderm, by mail order from a firm owned by Dr Carmody.
Mr Hugo Bonner, an enforcement officer with the Irish Medicines Board, told the court the drug was a steroid used for treating eczema and psoriasis and that it was a prescription-only drug.
Judge Carroll Moran was told the woman was not a patient of Dr Carmody's and that she did not have a prescription.
Defence counsel for Dr Carmody, Mr Brian McInerney BL, said his client had been struck off the Register of Medical Practitioners after his conviction and had suffered as a result of the media attention.
Mr McInerney said it had been a "difficult and turbulent time" for his client. He added that Dr Carmody had no previous convictions before these offences and that he had pleaded guilty from the start.
The court heard the GP was appealing the severity of the jail sentence, albeit a suspended one, because he did not wish to have this on his record.
Mr McInerney described the three-month suspended sentence imposed on a person with no previous convictions who pleaded guilty as "excessive".
Judge Moran described the case as serious because a doctor "is trusted by the community at large to comply with the law". Judge Moran said the accused had breached this trust as he was a doctor at the time.
The judge added, however, that he had to take into account the fact that Dr Carmody had no previous convictions and that he had been struck off the Register of Medical Practitioners.
He removed the jail sentence but warned that if the accused were to reoffend, these matters would "aggravate the situation".