Mr. Colm Forde:

I was going to come in on that. The Deputy will have heard different interpretations of Article 105(4) today from other witnesses. Our interpretation, however, is that it allows member states to continue to allow people other than vets to issue prescriptions if they had such mechanisms in their national legislation prior to January of 2019, which was the entry into force of this regulation. This regulation came into force in January 2019.

As I stated earlier, Ireland has never permitted anyone other than a veterinarian to issue a veterinary prescription. The products were allowed to be dispensed without a prescription. The legal advice we have, which we said we would follow up with the Attorney General's office for absolute clarity on it, is that Ireland cannot avail of that derogation 105(4).

Views were also expressed that this regulation is being driven by and is a choice of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. We have been at pains to stress to our stakeholders that there is no national discretion on this. It is written in EU legislation and has direct effect. There is no room here for Ireland to choose whether to comply with it. People have raised questions of legal interpretation and, obviously, we will seek to get that as best we can but there is no national discretion. The way we see it, we must comply with the EU law. I hope that has answered Deputy Nolan's questions.