Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are joined by the following representatives of Veterinary Ireland: Mr. Conor Geraghty, president; Mr. Tadhg Gavin, food-animal chair; and Mr. Finbarr Murphy, chief executive. I am sorry for keeping the witnesses waiting. All the witnesses are appearing from a witness room on the parliamentary precincts. They are very welcome to the meeting. We received their opening statement which has been circulated to members. As we are limited in our time due to Covid-19 restrictions, the committee has agreed that the opening statement will be taken as read so that we can use the full session for questions and answers. All opening statements are published on the Oireachtas website and are publicly available.

Witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to the committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence in relation to a particular matter and they continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

Participants in the meeting in a location outside the parliamentary precincts are asked to note that the constitutional protections afforded to those participating from within the parliamentary precincts do not extend to them. No clear guidance can be given on the extent to which participation is covered by the absolute privilege of a statutory nature.

I now invite questions from members. I thank the witnesses for their statement which is clear and concise. There is one point I would like to highlight before I hand over to other members of the committee. It reads:

Critically important antibiotics need to be controlled and preserved [I think we would all agree with that], this is best achieved by [the] reclassification as Veterinary Practitioner Only medicines. Therefore, these drugs could only be administered directly by a veterinary surgeon, where the need arises. This would drastically reduce usage and misuse of surplus antibiotics on animals not intended to be treated.

That is a very strong statement. In practice on farms, farmers have an awful lot of work to do in husbandry of the animals. The buck starts and stops with the farmer as regard the health of the animals. In practical terms, one might have an animal, for example, a Friesian bull calf, a lamb or a ewe, the value of which is X but significantly below a call-out fee. I am not questioning the call-out fee of the vet because any professional person needs to be paid. In order to ensure proper animal welfare standards and to ensure an animal gets treated when it needs to, surely that point in practice is not practical in animal terms. I am strongly of the view that a farmer will only use an antibiotic when it is absolutely necessary. Obviously, I would say that it has to be done under veterinary supervision but to state that financially we can bring a vet out to every animal that is sick on the farm cannot work in practice. I am seriously concerned that if this is enforced rigidly, one would have animal welfare issues on farms and none of us want to encounter that. How do the witnesses think this would work in practice? I accept fully that vets give a great service to farmers in rural Ireland but in economic and animal welfare terms, how could that work in practice?