Dr. Paul Corkery:

I will move on to the second last question the Senator had about decoupling. He mentioned Sweden and Denmark. One of the differences in Sweden and Denmark is that a farmer must nominate a single veterinary practitioner and must have a contract in place with them. Therefore, there is no room for competition in that regard. In some of the other countries - it is probably better not to mention them - the usage levels are far higher than they are in countries without decoupling. That is what the European Medicines Agency provided to the European Parliament. Every member state is obliged to provide data on the usage of antimicrobials within that country. Countries are ranked based on the usage, on a fairly complex system, based on the amount of biomass of animals they have.

Ireland ranks favourably in that rank order but some of the countries that have decoupled do not and that is the analysis the Parliament took into account. It said that it cannot show a benefit here collectively when we look at some of the bigger countries that have decoupled. There is no antimicrobial resistance benefit for humans or animals.