Professor Simon More:

I might pass the second, third and fourth questions to my colleague, Ms McAloon, but I would like to tackle the first question on prescriber benchmarking. What has happened in Denmark and, in particular, in the Netherlands is that they set up systems to capture prescribing data. That is first used to understand how much antibiotic is used and then to benchmark. This means that they are seeking to understand the situation at national level, then at the sectoral level, then at the level of the prescriber and finally at the level of the farm. I will focus on the prescriber. They capture prescribing data electronically and then for each prescriber in the country, after taking account of the type of farms they prescribe to and of the species involved, such as, for example, pigs versus cattle, they are then able to determine who prescribed the heaviest 10% of product. These are the people who they then spend some time essentially talking through the prescribing practices with in order to try to see why it is that they are such heavy prescribers.

These prescribing targets, which are farm and prescriber targets, have proved to be one of the critical factors for the Dutch, for example. They set a target of reducing the amount of antimicrobial medicinal products used in food production by 20% in 2009. By 2011, they had dropped it down to 50% of 2009 targets and by the time they got a little bit further, they said they could reduce the total amount of antimicrobial medicinal products used in the country by 70%. They have continued to drive down antibiotic use without any effect on the safety of animals. That is important because if we think of the farm to fork strategy of the European Commission, it is seeking a 50% reduction in antimicrobial usage in farm animal production by 2030. The Dutch, Danes, French, Germans and a number of other countries are dramatically reducing antimicrobial usage. That has not happened here yet. This is a critical factor for success in us being able to do this.

Before I pass to Ms McAloon to answer the other three questions, I will highlight why this is so important. It is important because there are antibiotics being used in the dairy production sector in Ireland at the moment that are among the few alternative products left on the market for the treatment of severe sepsis and respiratory tract infection in people. This issue of seeking to drive down antimicrobial usage in the food sector is important, both in legislation and from a moral point of view.

My colleague, Ms McAloon, will answer Deputy Fitzmaurice's other questions.