Mr. Conor Geraghty:

I apologise; I missed that bit. We have farms at present where plan A has failed. I certainly have them in my practice, as does Mr. Gavin and as do vets throughout the country. It is more common in cattle-rearing farms, as Mr. Gavin has said, and on sheep farms. Plan B has already been implemented. It means we cannot rely on chemical control of parasites on these farms and we have to implement grazing management plans, whereby the top end of the sward is grazed with smaller animals and the pastures are grazed out with older immune animals. It means farmers have to fence off some areas, for example for fluke, where sheep or cattle cannot be put. It means instead of closing 60% of a farm for silage, the farmer takes paddocks so the same paddocks are not grazed ten or 11 times a year, because the parasite build-up is too high. There are all sorts of ways of tackling it if it happens.

There is no doubt we have resistance. Resistance is not just there because a product was used with or without a prescription. Resistance is there because the product is used. When a product is used on a population of parasites, it will kill 90%, 95% or 99% of those parasites but the percentage that is left will multiply and eventually will become the dominant group. If the same product is always used, they will become resistant and that is how it works. It is about strategies.

This is part of a strategy that is already there. Having veterinary advice will remove the temptation to use the more convenient product, which has meant some farmers using the same product on cattle for years and years because it is pour on and handy, or perhaps they have used products where they are not necessary, for example, on sheep farms where all the ewes are dosed every time the lambs are dosed, which is not necessary, or lambs being dosed early in springtime before there is any need to do so, which is not necessary. All of these represent a build-up of resistance. There is also a potential cost saving to farmers because they do not need to use these products. I hope this answers the Senator's question. It is not all or nothing. We are living with this on a small percentage of farms at present and we are hoping that by instituting change, which we did not ask for but it is our duty to uphold, we can slow this down and perhaps even reverse it on the majority of farms in the country.