Mr. Terence O'Shea:

One of the figures that has not been mentioned is the 300 prescription-only medicines a licensed merchant can currently stock. The majority of licensed merchants do not stock any of those products because they failed to secure prescriptions from veterinary practitioners. The national sales trend on that range of prescription-only medicines is that less than half of 1% are sold by licensed merchants premises. In reality, the figures provided by the Irish Co-Operative Organisation Society, ICOS, applied to licensed merchants but a long time ago. We have been squeezed out of a substantial part of the retail industry already. The majority of licensed merchants focus on the sale of antiparasitics, be they for the treatment for internal or external parasites. Some 80% of my turnover is antiparasitics.

One of the things we have looked at over a long period of time is to try to get a financial or regulatory impact assessment of how this will impact the licensed merchant industry. The bottom line is that the majority of licensed merchants, people like me who focus strictly on antiparasitics, would close. My estimation is that my own business would be closed within a period of six to 12 months. My turnover would collapse, it would be no longer profitable and I would have to close my door and walk away. Other merchants who may be involved in the sale of agrichemicals, fertilisers or feeds would obviously exit the veterinary medicines industry and focus on other aspects of their business.

The important thing in all of this is that every business closure and every job loss is a blow to rural Ireland. I live in rural Ireland. I service part of west Cork and south Kerry: the Iveragh Peninsula, the Beara Peninsula, the Sheep's Head Peninsula and the Mizen Head Peninsula which is as rural as you can get. We do see tourists in the summer but there is a lot of winter there. Every single job in important. My business is important to me and it is our only source of income, our only livelihood.

In regard to the financial impact assessment, the IMA carried out such an assessment on our members and I will give an example of the results that came back from two counties. One of the counties had 12 licensed merchants in total. Some 11 of those engaged in the survey. Four of these businesses would close in their entirety, seven would exit the sales of veterinary medicines, and no business would continue to trade. In another county with 11 merchants, there would be two business closures, seven would exit the industry to focus on other aspects of their business, and one of the businesses would survive. In two counties then, where there are 22 licensed merchants premises, there would be one remaining. If this was replicated in the farming and the co-op industry, all of a sudden where there was competition with maybe two licensed merchants-----