The Government is urging people not to stock up on medication ahead of the UKs exit from the EU.

The Department of Health has insisted that the country has enough medicine stock to deal with any potential gap in supply in the weeks and months after Brexit.

It is advising patients that there is no need to ask for additional prescriptions – or for hospitals and pharmacies to stockpile medication.

This morning, the department’s secretary general Jim Breslin told the Oireachtas Health Committee that 61 HSE officials are working on Brexit preparations – at a cost of €6m.

Contingency planning

He said contingency plans are in place are in place to deal shortfall in medicinal supply.

“Ireland is unlikely to face serious general medicine supply issues in the period immediately after March 29th,” he said.

“Any emerging supply issues will, in the first instance, be dealt with from existing supplies held within the domestic distribution chain.”

He warned patients that stockpiling medication would have a negative effect overall.

“To do so actually would suck product out of the supply chain which might produce a shortage and might mean the person who needs it won’t be able to get it,” he said.

“So that is a very important public message that we are seeking to promote.”

Media campaign

It comes after Fine Gael TD Kate O’Connell warned that people are already stockpiling despite the Government’s advice.

She noted that warnings can often backfire.

“There is talk there of a media campaign,” she said. “I just would urge caution there in the sense that you say to people, ‘don’t stockpile’ and the first thing they do is get a truck and fill it full of their tablets.

“That is just the nature of people and the survival instinct.”