Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses to the committee and thank them for coming before us. Given we are seeing new regulations coming in that will have an impact on licensed merchant businesses with qualified persons throughout rural Ireland, are the witnesses saying it is their belief licensed merchants and their qualified persons have been issuing too much of these medicines? We have also heard the concerns of some farmers that vets will possibly corner the market on issuing prescriptions for the products in question. Now we hear about a new web-based national veterinary prescribing system. If this is the future, why were promises made some time ago that a framework would be implemented that would give farmers greater choice in sourcing their veterinary medicinal products from a vet or a licensed merchant? It never actually happened. Why has the Veterinary Council of Ireland not acted to ensure farmers and licensed merchants have prompt access to prescriptions as opposed to relying on e-prescriptions, which we all know can take up to five days to arrive? Granted vets have no Internet out in the fields but a delay of five days does not seem a reasonable turnaround time. It is not in the interests of farmers, animal welfare and the sector generally and indicates an issue with competitiveness more than anything else.