Deregulation of Irish pharmacies could end up costing the Government more in health funding, the State's chemists have claimed.

The Irish Pharmaceutical Union (IPU) yesterday accused the Government of gambling with patient care following last year's decision to strip away regulations covering the sector.

The warnings come as the Government-appointed Mortell Review on pharmacies - of which the IPU is a member - prepares to report its findings at the end of the month.

IPU secretary-general Mr Seamus Feeley says his members want recognition of the special role of the community pharmacist. "Our concern would be that the professional and healthcare role of pharmacies has been lost in the debate and that the business is now being looked at purely in economic terms," he said.

A briefing yesterday on the international experience of deregulation heard that customers of independently-owned pharmacies were less likely to suffer dispensing errors.

Dr Samantha Maingay, a medical sociologist attached to Kings College at the University of London, said research had shown that 18 per cent of patients attending corporately owned pharmacies were found to be at risk of "moderate to serious" dispensing errors compared with just 4 per cent of those attending independent outlets.

Mr Calvin Anthony, a US legislator and former executive vice-president of the National Community Pharmacists Association, said "drug misadventures" - people not taking the right drugs in the right way - cost US health services more than $170 billion a year in hospital admissions and healthcare costs. "One in five admissions to hospital is attributed to medication errors of one type or another - many of which arise at the pharmacy level," he said.

Dr Maingay also pointed to US research showing that independent pharmacists were four times more likely to offer patients advice than corporately owned operations.

Mr Roger Collis, president of the IPU, said the coming weeks would be critical for the future shape of the pharmacy sector in Ireland. He said members were not looking for a return to the 1996 regulations which were swept aside last year following an opinion from the Attorney-General's office. But the sector did need "appropriate regulation".

"Thus far the debate has focused too much on economic theory and too little on patient care," he said. The IPU is pressing for regulation along the lines of northern Europe, where pharmacies must be owned by qualified pharmacists.

Mr Feeley pointed to the experience of Norway where, in the 18 months following deregulation, 70 per cent of the pharmacy business was taken over by multiple operators. "These operators do not have access to the big markets in Europe but they have deep pockets and when they find an unregulated market, they move quickly," said Mr Feeley. "There is no turning back once there are changes."

He said such action undermined the Competition Authority argument that deregulation would open the way for entry by young pharmacists to the business.

Responding to reports of prices that are dramatically higher for Irish consumers, the IPU said prices in Ireland compared well with northern Europe because they were set by comparison to prices in those countries. "The cost of medicine is controlled by the government," said Mr Collis. It sets the wholesale price of drugs and also determines prices under the medical card scheme and the drug payment scheme.

Dr Maingay warned against treating pharmacies as just another retail sector. "Safety, accessibility and accountability are the central issues for customers and the research shows this is best achieved by independently owned pharmacies," she said.