Mr. Colm Forde:

To follow up on the points made by my colleague, Ms Barry Walsh, the negotiating position of departmental officials at the time of the regulation was to retain the status quoso that antiparasitic medicines could still be made available without a veterinary prescription. We were successful in that regard. What has changed since then is that we now know there is extensive evidence of resistance so we no longer meet the derogation criteria that allows those products to be made available without prescription. Our UK counterparts also sought to retain the status quowhereby they had people other than vets who could issue prescriptions. Both countries got to retain the status quothat they already had in existence.