Irish firm imported condoms unaware they were unsafe

An Irish company, Sundrelle Ltd, has admitted it imported condoms from Britain which have been discovered to be counterfeit and unsafe for use.

The faulty condoms marketed under the Durex brand have been on sale in pharmacies across the State for the last 10 months. Some of the condoms are prone to splitting and do not offer protection against pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease.

It emerged yesterday that pharmacies selling the counterfeit condoms had not acquired them through the approved Durex distributor.

Only one company, Allphar Services Ltd, is authorised by Durex to distribute to Irish pharmacies. The Irish Medicines Board (IMB) confirmed that Allphar was not responsible for bringing the counterfeit products into the State.

Sundrelle says it did not buy the condoms from Durex, but from a British company it believed was a reputable supplier. It did not know the products were not genuine, an employee said last night.

Sundrelle would not name the British wholesaler, but said it had passed this information on to the IMB and was now co-operating fully with the board. An IMB spokeswoman said the products should not have found their way on to the Irish market because pharmacies had been instructed by the IMB only to buy condoms from approved distributors.

The president of the Irish Pharmaceutical Union, Karl Hilton, said pharmacists were under no legal obligation to buy only from the distributor authorised by Durex. "We're in a free market in Europe, there are no rules to say we have to buy from a particular source," Dr Hilton said. "The company in question has been a reputable distributor for many years and there's no way pharmacists would have deliberately handled counterfeit goods."

However, he said the union would be seeking discussions with the IMB to prevent the problem recurring. "The difficulty is that the distribution channels are not as clear as they are with medicines. Condoms are considered medical devices and are not licensed in the same way as medicines."

The IMB confirms there is no specific legal control over the distribution of medical devices.

The counterfeit condoms were discovered following a number of complaints to the company from Irish customers.

They were sold as Durex Featherlite 12-pack, batch number: VR3073 U or C or E, expiry date: 2008/02 and Durex Extra Safe 12-pack batch number: 20602503 expiry date: 2007/11. Both were available only from pharmacies.