A HIGH COURT judge has been told it should become clear later this week whether any resolution has been achieved in the mediation talks between the HSE and the Irish Pharmacy Union in a dispute over the HSE’s decision to reduce discount payments to pharmacies under a community medical scheme.
If the mediation is successful, it will bring to an end actions initiated by hundreds of pharmacies against the HSE. If the mediation does not produce agreement, then the first of those actions, known as the Hickey action, will proceed on July 22nd next. The Hickey case will effectively decide the issues in the other actions.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly was told yesterday by Brian O’Moore SC, for four of the pharmacies which have challenged the HSE’s decision to reduce payments, that there had been three sessions of mediation talks earlier this month before the mediator, Eoin McCullough SC.
More talks were planned for this evening, counsel said. While he could not say what was happening in the mediation, he expected the sides would have a clear idea whether the mediation would come to something after today’s talks. If it did amount to something, there would then be an exchange of correspondence between the parties.
Mr Justice Kelly, who had last month directed the sides to consider court-supervised mediation, said he hoped the talks would prove fruitful and he asked them to report back to him at the end of this week.
Hundreds of pharmacies have challenged the HSE’s decision to lower discount payments to them for medicines and services supplied under the Community Pharmacy Contractor Agreement.
Last month, four linked pharmacies secured an injunction requiring that payments continue to them and the order applies pending the outcome of the mediation and/or legal proceedings.
The four pharmacies – trading as Kissanes in towns in counties Kilkenny and Carlow – claimed they were at risk of insolvency if the payments were not maintained.
