The Pharmacy Act 2007 requires that all pharmacists must undertake continuing professional development (CPD). The PSI (Continuing Professional Development) Rules 2015 set out the CPD obligations for pharmacists, including that they must maintain a record of their CPD in an online ePortfolio and demonstrate evidence of this to the Irish Institute of Pharmacy (IIOP) on request. 

Pharmacists must declare their CPD undertakings to be accepted for annual continued registration. For further information please see  Continuing Professional Development for Pharmacists.

When applying for continued registration, pharmacists are asked the question, “Are you currently in a patient-facing role?” We seek this information from you to determine if you are eligible for selection for practice review, as part of the PSI’s CPD processes. 

A patient-facing role includes any pharmacist providing care directly to a patient and/or any pharmacist whose work has a direct impact on patient care, irrespective of the number of hours of practice per week, month or year. Although not exhaustive, the following are examples of roles which are considered ‘patient-facing’: 

• Pharmacists working on a fulltime, occasional or casual basis in community pharmacy 

• Hospital pharmacists working on a fulltime, occasional or casual basis 

• Superintendent Pharmacists 

• Supervising Pharmacists 

• Locum Pharmacists 

For more information, Part 5, Rule 12 (7) of the PSI(Continuing Professional Development) Rules 2015 states: ….practising in a “patient-facing role” means carrying out the role of a pharmacist in the delivery, or the oversight of the delivery, of care and services to members of the public, including patients, whether in a retail pharmacy business or in a pharmacy department of a hospital, or any other relevant location including on a casual or occasional basis and includes the role carried out by a superintendent pharmacist, a supervising pharmacist and any other registered pharmacist engaged or employed in a retail pharmacy business or in the pharmacy department of a hospital.

When applying for continued registration, pharmacists are required to make the following declarations: 

• Declare if they have been prohibited under the law of another state from carrying on any activity in that state corresponding to the practice of a pharmacist or the carrying on of a retail pharmacy business, or convicted in Ireland or another state of an offence the nature of which has, in the opinion of the PSI Council, a bearing on my fitness to practise. 

• Declare if they have been convicted of an offence in a Court in Ireland. They do not need to tell us about a conviction in a Court in Ireland which is "spent" under the Criminal Justice (Spent Convictions and Certain Disclosures) Act 2016. For more information, please refer to the ‘Guidance on Spent Convictions’ section below.

• Declare if they been convicted of an offence in a Court outside Ireland. They do not need to tell us about a conviction in a Court outside Ireland which is not referred to in our guidance on disclosure of convictions obtained outside Ireland. For more information, please refer to the 'Guidance for convictions obtained outside of Ireland' section below.  

This guidance applies to convictions obtained in Ireland and it does not apply to convictions obtained outside of Ireland. If you have obtained a conviction in another country, you will need to refer to the 'Guidance for convictions obtained outside of Ireland' section below. 

On 29 April 2016, the Criminal Justice (Spent Convictions and Certain Disclosures) Act 2016 came into law. Under this Act, certain convictions do not have to be disclosed where these convictions are spent. This means that in certain circumstances you may not need to disclose a criminal conviction to us. 

This guidance is designed to help you understand when a conviction may be regarded as spent. This is guidance only and relates solely to applications for registration with the PSI. It is your responsibility to make sure the information you provide to the PSI is accurate and complete. If you are unsure as to whether a conviction is spent or you have any queries or concerns, you should take your own independent expert or legal advice on the matter. 

A conviction is spent when ALL the criteria listed below are satisfied: 

• You were convicted of an offence in a Court in Ireland and you were 18 years old or over at the time you committed the offence. 

• You received one of the following: 

  • A non-custodial sentence; 

  • A prison sentence of 12 months or less; 

• A suspended sentence of 2 years or less which was not revoked in whole or in part by the Court. 

• You have served, undergone or complied with the sentence imposed or the order made by the Court. 

• More than 7 years have passed since the effective date of the conviction. The effective date of the conviction is the date on which the prison sentence or the non-custodial sentence became operative. 

• You did not receive an “excluded sentence” from the Court. An excluded sentence is defined in the Act. It includes a sentence for an offence reserved by law to be tried by the Central Criminal Court or a conviction from a Court other than a District Court for a sexual offence, as defined in Schedule 1 of the Act.

Please note if you received two or more convictions for offences which were committed at the same time or arose out of the same incident, these convictions may be regarded as one conviction when assessing whether it is spent in accordance with the criteria set out above. 

You will need to declare if you have more than one conviction in certain circumstances. Some convictions can be classed as minor convictions. These minor convictions are as follows: 

• Convictions for motoring offences in the District Court excluding any offence for dangerous driving. 

• Convictions for minor public order offences in the District Court for offences under the following legislation: 

  • Section 37A of the Intoxicating Liquor Act 1988, or 

  • Section 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8A (4) or 9 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act, 1994 

For the purposes of this guidance, we will refer to all other convictions, as non-minor convictions. 

Please take note of the following if you have more than one conviction which meet the criteria 1-5 in Q2 above: 

• If you have two (or more) non-minor convictions, then none of your convictions are deemed spent, and you must tell us about all your convictions, including convictions for minor offences. 

• If you have one non-minor conviction, together with one or more minor conviction(s), then you do not need to tell us about any of these convictions. 

• If you have no non-minor convictions, but have minor convictions, then you do not need to tell us about these minor convictions. 

On 29 April 2016, the Criminal Justice (Spent Convictions and Certain Disclosures) Act, 2016 (the Act) came into law. Under this Act, certain convictions do not have to be disclosed where these convictions are spent.

This Act does not apply to convictions obtained outside of Ireland. However, the PSI applies an administrative filter for convictions obtained outside of Ireland which means you do not have to tell us about convictions obtained outside of Ireland unless the conviction was for:

• A homicide offence

• A sexual offence

• A conviction for any offence for which you were sentenced to a term of imprisonment for 12 months or more

• A conviction obtained outside of Ireland for an offence relating to children or vulnerable persons

• A conviction for a drugs offence

You must tell the PSI if you have been convicted of any offence in (a) to (e) above regardless of the date of the conviction(s).

It is your responsibility to make sure the information you provide to the PSI is accurate and complete. If you are unsure about the above or you have any queries or concerns, you should take your own independent expert or legal advice on the matter.

This is guidance only and relates solely to applications for registration with the PSI.