Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has told the Dáil that some pharmacists were charging people for blister packs "for their own financial benefit".
Blister packs keep daily dosage of tablets in separate plastic pockets which allows patients to avoid confusion around what to take and when.
Ms Carroll MacNeill was asked by Sinn Féin TD Cathy Bennett if the State could continue to pay for the packs.
Clarifying the position, Ms MacNeill said there is "no policy to be reversed, because nothing has changed".
"This service was being used incorrectly by some - not all, but by some pharmacists for their own financial benefit," she said.
The minister said some people had always paid for blister packs, charged by their pharmacy, for convenience and other reasons.
There are those who have been getting them for free for years and have never been charged.
She also pointed to some patients who were getting their blister packs for free.
"But the pharmacist was incorrectly charging the State under the phased dispensing scheme for something that was not appropriate and not allowed and not legitimate," she added.
Deputy Bennett said putting the cost on older and vulnerable people was not fair, and she urged the Government to come to an arrangement with pharmacists.
Minister MacNeill said the Government wanted to prioritse vulnerable people, but did not want to "reward those pharmacists to keep things even for them, for something that they were doing wrong in the first place".
