Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the commission for its submission on this proposed legislation. The commission has made submissions on similar legislation in the past and there are some inconsistencies in what we heard today with what the commission said on previous occasions in regard to legislation. I will point to a couple of law points. One relates to competition law of the European Court of Justice, ECJ, which states that the ECJ has held that competitive restrictions resulting from acts of professionally regulated bodies do not fall within the scope of EU competition law where such restrictions are necessary and proportionate to the regulation of a profession. This amending legislation has three main purposes. The first is to prevent laypersons, non-professional corporates from illegally practising veterinary medicine through the purchase and operation of veterinary practices in Ireland. The second is to ensure that the practice of veterinary medicine remains within the regulatory compass of the Veterinary Council of Ireland as the VCI has no regulatory control over lay operators. The third and most important purpose is to protect the consumer, animal health and welfare and public health. That is paramount.

Allowing an unregistered person to own a veterinary practice would mean an unregistered person or body corporate would enjoy a level of control over substantive practice-related decisions, for example, the policy of the veterinary practice including practice protocols, the mix of work accepted and performed in the practice, the materials employed by practitioners in the practice, and the sale and supply of prescription drugs in direct contravention of the animal remedies regulations, section 28(4) together with Schedule 1, Part 1, paragraphs 1, 2 and 3. In lay terms what that means is that we have lay people purchasing and having the control of drugs.

This committee has spent much time in the recent past discussing the availability of veterinary medicines and the way non-prescription veterinary medicines will be dealt with in the future. There has been much concern about resistance to drugs and the dangers to human health therein. Here we are now going to allow non-professional people to have the purchase and sale of those drugs under their authority, rather than under the authority of qualified professionals? As an example, when a corporate body took over a practice in Northern Ireland, the veterinarian working there was denied access to the drugs that were in that practice when it was taken over. He has made complaints about the fact that those drugs were then outside of his control. They are some fundamental points. Lay ownership of a veterinary practice will not be able to guarantee a 24-hour service because VCI's code of conduct requires a veterinary practitioner to ensure arrangements are made for 24-hour on-call emergency cover. It is not binding on a non-registered person or body corporate to do that. That is another point in regard to animal welfare and availability of the service.

We have seen corporates grow in other countries. Unfortunately, the level of service and the cost to the consumer, rural and urban, has increased dramatically as a result. Corporates will not pick a practice in Connemara or on a peninsula. They will target large urban small animal practices in intensive farming areas. Mr. McHugh mentioned the availability of veterinarians. I know of a large practice that was recently taken over where 11 veterinarians were employed, three of whom partners in the company. They were part of the purchase and benefited from the sale of the practice, but the other eight veterinarians working there saw their career progression meeting a stone wall. To get a number of veterinarians into large animal practice is a challenge at the moment. If we allow corporates to gain a stronghold however, the career progression for those young veterinarians will be severely restricted. It will become even harder to entice veterinarians coming out of college to go into large animal practices.

If Mr. McHugh wants examples of other European countries protecting professions like this we can look to Germany. I will read from an article, which states:

On 19 May 2009 the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ... confirmed that Germany can have national legislation which prevents non-pharmacists from owning and operating pharmacies ... [the joined cases and case numbers are immaterial here]. This effectively is a ban ... on the outside ownership of pharmacies, and no pharmacy chains will be allowed to operate.

According to German law, the principle of the owner-run pharmacy applies: thus only pharmacists are allowed to own and run pharmacies. There is a ban on outside ownership, in order to thus ensure the job-related independence of the pharmacist.

I believe one can easily correlate that with what we are trying to do with this legislation as regards the veterinary profession. Therefore, it is clear. The article goes on to state:

The ECJ came to the conclusion that the German ban on outside ownership is valid. Although the ban could be seen as an intervention in the European freedom of establishment, this was balanced against the protection of health. Each Member State can decide which scope of protection it wants to achieve for the population. For this reason, a Member State is entitled to exclude non-pharmacists from owning and running a pharmacy if it believes that these persons do not have the necessary job-related independence and therefore constitute a risk for the public health.

I spoke to a veterinarian who rang me because he knows I am sponsoring this legislation. His practice where he worked was recently bought by a corporate entity; in other words, by laypeople. He was told that part of his remit for the following year would be to increase the sale of drugs by 10%. We have people coming in whose aim is to increase their bottom line. They are not coming from a profession that takes an ethical oath as regards animal welfare when they qualify.

While I welcome Mr. McHugh's observations about competition, I feel the opposite is the case in allowing the change in legislation, which from 2005 to 2015 was supported by the Competition Authority at the time. The Veterinary Council of Ireland's interpretation of the Act was to prohibit the sale of veterinary practices only to veterinarians and to restrict the ownership to veterinarians. The interpretation of that legislation was changed in 2017. This committee had a number of committee meetings around that time. We will be talking to the Veterinary Council of Ireland at a later date. This amendment to this legislation, however, was borne out of those meetings when the committee at the time, of which the Chairman, Senator Daly and I are probably the only three surviving members, was extremely unhappy with the explanations and reasons that were given to us for the change of interpretation of the legislation. I have seen advice from the present Attorney General, however, who gave advice to the veterinary union at the time, which very strongly argues that the interpretation taken at that time is not in accordance with the legislation. This amendment is to make that crystal clear and to reaffirm the previous Veterinary Council interpretation of the Veterinary Practice Bill.

In conclusion, there are clear precedents in other European countries for this kind of restriction. It is very much within EU law. It is up to each member state if it feels that it is warranted from a public health point of view. At the end of the day, public health is the most paramount thing that we as legislators must protect. It is clear that what is happening at the moment is in clear breach of the animal remedies regulations, which is under the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It is very clear that allowing laypersons to have control of the purchase of prescribed drugs cannot be in accordance with that regulation. There is, therefore, urgency on us to act.

We have also seen cases in France where veterinary practices have been delisted because the French authorities felt what was happening there was not in accordance with public good. The fact that we have corporates established here does not make the Veterinary Council's interpretation of this legislation correct. As I said, veterinary practices that were owned by corporates have been delisted in France. There is clear precedent for legislation, therefore, as per the amendment to the Bill that I am sponsoring.

While I take on board Mr. McHugh's concerns as regards competition, I feel they are unfounded and that the service we have had provided to us for generations by veterinary practices has worked extremely well for us and for animal welfare. Whether it is local shows or whatever, veterinary practitioners have never been found wanting in providing voluntary services in their community. We have a model that has worked extremely well in providing an excellent service to the consumer at a reasonable cost.

I am very strongly of the view that this amendment to the Bill will ensure that lasts for further generations. From the point of view of the consumer and the young veterinarian coming into practice and, as I said, most importantly of all, from the public health and animal welfare point of view, it is absolutely essential that the practice of veterinary medicine is kept under the control of veterinarians. As I said, we see precedence in other European countries and it is clear that this country, under EU law and competition law, has the remit to amend this legislation.