Ms Niamh Muldoon:

First, you must separate the two proposed regimes. We know the veterinary medicine regulations offer much stricter controls in relation to antimicrobial products. The validity of the prescription will be for five days only, individual animal data are required, and there is a greater threshold for prescription of those antimicrobial products. Separately, we have the antiparasitic medicines. The HPRA task force report recommended that those products would require a veterinary prescription. That is a very significant change in the practice and approach we had previously seen coming into force next January. How do we approach that? It might be that there is potential for a herd health parasite control programme to be put in place. Maybe a vet would offer some analysis on the husbandry, conditions, grazing, pasture management and all the factors that would feed in to a control programme relating to parasite contro,l after which a prescription could be offered for treatments as appropriate in the circumstances in the opinion of the veterinary practitioner, the only person who can offer a diagnosis and the only person who can offer a veterinary prescription.

It is not that we are saying a phone call to the vet is going to fix every ailment. Equally, it is not that the Veterinary Council will make any comment on the role of the licensed merchants or suitably qualified or authorised persons. Our role, as regulator, is to regulate the practice of veterinary medicine. It is in that context we will ultimately issue the code of professional conduct. What is being proposed is a very different practice from that which the country has enjoyed to date. We know the recommendations are coming in the best interests of maintaining efficacy of products, as the committee heard earlier from the HPRA, and the basis for its recommendation that the antiparasitic medicines would require a veterinary prescription. Equally, the veterinary medicine regulations require a much more stringent approach Europe-wide in the use of antimicrobial products, all of which is done in the best interests of animal health and welfare and, indeed, public health.