A Louth-based, pro-life pharmacist has been censured over comments she posted on Facebook about abortion.

Aileen D’Arcy, a hospital pharmacist, was criticised by the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland [PSI] after an inquiry by the regulatory body’s professional conduct committee.

D’Arcy had said that, if passed, the 2018 abortion referendum would mean that “people like me, a pharmacist, will be forced to be complicit in the taking of a child’s life in the womb”.

In her post D’Arcy also said: “People should take the bloody abortion pills themselves and if they kill themselves in the process, it is their own fault, nobody else”.

D’Arcy observed that many UK pharmacists could not practise because they would not supply abortion pills. She also claimed that taxpayers would have to pay “for reckless behaviour”, while responsibility and accountability seemed to be “out of the picture.”

The inquiry was told that D’Arcy accepted that she had made an intemperate comment and expressed regret over it, although she did not accept it constituted professional misconduct. Her counsel argued that all she was highlighting was how pharmacists with her views on abortion might be required to prescribe pills in contradiction of their beliefs.

Remy Farrell SC, counsel for the PSI, said that the PSI did not take issue with the substance of D’Arcy’s views as they were a legitimate political opinion but rather with the inflammatory and inappropriate nature of the language she had used.