The pharmacy profession continues to be dominated by anti-competitive practices including "artificial" limits on the numbers coming into the sector, the competition authority alleged yesterday.
The organisation said the practice of "confining" the teaching of pharmacy to one university college - Trinity - was "unnecessary and undesirable from a competition perspective".
It said that because of the restrictions on entry to the profession, the points requirements for the course were "almost unattainable" by students of "even above average intelligence and aptitude".
Mr Declan Purcell, an authority member, said legislation governing the sector generally protected inefficient pharmacies from "effective competition". This was bad for the public.
It was extremely difficult, he said, to enter the sector because new entrants had to show there was a "need for their service" before they were permitted to open. He was speaking at a conference organised by the Higher Education Authority in Dublin.
Mr Purcell said that in recent years the Government had obtained a derogation from EU law which meant that pharmacists educated abroad had to wait three years before they were allowed to establish a business.
"Our general view is that there are no grounds for restricting the establishment of any business simply on the basis either of the nationality of the owner or based on where they gained their qualifications," said Mr Purcell.
Mr John Burke, the president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, said a recent report from the economic consultant, Dr Peter Bacon, which called for a significant increase in numbers did not make a clear case for such action. He said the industry had suffered from an oversupply of graduates in previous decades and this had to be avoided.