This issue is about prescription medication, not over the counter paracetamol, in the UK you can buy own brand paracetamol, ibuprofen, aspirin for 15p-30p a pack in any chain store. Not allowed here. Not so much an issue of boots ripping you off, as the Irish pharmaceuticals board not allowing own brand over the counter medications.
Prescriptions are different. Prices arent displayed, and you can’t exactly shop around in the same way as you can for other products, plus, of the doctor writes ‘tylex’ on the script, then the chemist has to give you that particular brand of co-codemol, other brands of the same product can’t be substituted. Step in the right direction by boots.

Ask the people at the top in the cartels!

The government need to react now and allow generic substitution so that everyone in the country benefits! Tired of hearing how pharmacists creaming it whilst GPs get 60 euro for three minute chat and piece of paper! Outrageous!

This looks like it’s a three-card-trick, a bait-and-switch: callit it what you like but it’s certainly not the great reduction that was trumpeted yesterday.
From RTE News:
Consumers’ Association chief Dermott Jewell said to RTE that “a fuller picture had emerged since the original announcement was made on Monday.”
“The difficulty that has come across in the last 24 hours is that… we’re still just seeing a shifting in the pricing structure, I mean Boots themselves have admitted that other prices will increase, so its a form of subsidisation,” he said.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0530/boots-move-described-as-subsidisation.html

Since when did Tescos sell prescription medicines??
You’re right, we have been paying well over the odds for prescription medications for years in this country, but you can’t blame Boots for that – in the absence of competition from generic medications, branded meds have been able to charge what they please. A complete abuse of a monopoly which successive governments have failed to address…

Can you not accept that this is a good thing and not just bitch about it not being original I don’t see any other pharmacy group chasing Tesco.

Tesco have pharmacies at Naas and Balbriggan branches and are set to open more. They were first to offer these kinds of reductions. Im not saying its not a good thing, i just dislike boots trying to suggest they are only doing it to help us out – they could have done that long ago, but they were too busy making 100% profit margins on drugs that are essential to my life, but which govt still refuse a medical card for.

That’s known as the placebo effect.

Well one makes me sleep the other doesn’t.

I’m not saying you’re wrong (although I think you are) but as it happens the Irish Medicines Board, which I’ll wager knows a damn sight more than any of us about these things, says different: “Generic medicines meet exactly the same standards of quality and safety and have the same effect as the original medicine” Ref: http://www.imb.ie/images/uploaded/documents/GenericMedicines.pdf

Ah yeh I’m not disagreeing and have used other generics all fine it just seems to be one brand I have a preference for because it’s got a drowsy effect but it works the same for its intended purpose.

Andrew if I had an extra €20,000 I wouldn’t pay that household tax

My friends mother is on medication every month, she has to fork out €246 a month, in the UK the same prescription is £94. Thats were she goes.

The drug payment scheme means that an entire family shouldn’t have to pay more than €132 per calendar month.

She does not qualify for the drug payment scheme. Her medication costs €246 a month in ireland, she has to make trips to Belfast or Holyhead

How does she not qualify for the DPS? Is she taking unlicensed medication?

She moved here from canada, she is retired, she does not have an irish PPS number.

is she not entitled to reimbursement for her drugs bill by the Canadian health service?