Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the guests and thank them for attending the meeting. I will be very brief. Regarding the practice of practitioners giving out prescriptions where complaints are made, does the Veterinary Council of Ireland investigate those complaints? If it does, have any of these people been prosecuted or lost their veterinary licences over recent years?

Is it really necessary to have just veterinary people making these prescriptions? As the witnesses know and as Ms Muldoon herself said, to be fair to her, there will be a cost factor for farmers and it will be very hard on them. As other speakers have said, they are already in difficulty with regard to profit, and this will put a further regulation on them. I believe farmers are over-regulated. No matter what is prescribed, doctors and veterinary surgeons and people such as the witnesses will always say there is an overprescribing of these products.

Like other people, what I am worried about is competition. I know that is not the Veterinary Council of Ireland's problem. Its problem is to make sure these people are prescribing what they are prescribing as they should be prescribing it. People have said this one is prescribing too much and that one is prescribing too much. I have not seen many prosecutions over the years. The witnesses might fill me in on that, please.