Dermot was elected as President to the IPU by the Executive Committee and took up the position in June 2021. Dermot is a director of Cloyne Pharmacy, a past Vice-President and Treasurer of the Irish Pharmacy Union, former Chairman to the Pharmacy Contractors’ Committee, former board member of the ICCPE and a former Chairman of the Joint Consultative Group of the IPU, which meets with the HSE on a regular basis. He has served on the IT steering group of the IPU and on the exam review board of the IIOP, as well as helping to develop Practice Review for implementation in Community Pharmacy in Ireland.

Dermot graduated with a first class honours degree from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow in 1995 and completed his pre-registration year in a progressive community pharmacy in Glasgow. He purchased a pharmacy in Cloyne, Co Cork, and has expanded it four times in the past 19 years. In response to customer demand, he opened the first community pharmacy-based warfarin clinic in Ireland in early 2010. The work of the clinic has been acknowledged in Dermot receiving awards such as Community Pharmacist and overall winner of the Pharmacist of the Year in 2011, as well as international recognition at the QIC Anticoagulation Awards in London in 2014.