Mr. Ollie Ryan:

I am a merchant in the midlands. I have listened to different people, including Deputy Fitzmaurice, speak about small merchants. If the rural merchant is taken out of places such as Roscomroe, which is near us, and Rosemount in County Westmeath, nothing and no one will be left. Those merchants are the hub of the community. They are an integral part of that particular area. They are all over the place. Mr. Willie Gibson is a merchant in Donegal. People like him are at a crossroads. They provide a service and interaction for the many farmers who never see anybody. If this segment of the business is taken away, the farmer at home in his yard will say to himself that if the merchant does not have everything, there is no point in visiting him or her. The farmer will go wherever he or she can get everything. A farmer will take a Tesco approach to the matter. He or she will go to the biggest place which supplies everything. It would mean a wipeout of all rural merchants in such places, including on the western seaboard, across the midlands and everywhere else. Small merchants play a significant part in local communities in small villages all over the country. If those merchants are taken out of the picture, those communities will be gone. Veterinary medicine is an enormous part of the business. If one segment of a business is taken away, the rest will ebb away until it is all gone.

I would not like to be a merchant near the Border. Such a merchant would be wiped out. Why would a farmer go to a veterinarian, pay for a prescription and go to his merchant to buy anti-parasitic medicines when he or she could go across the road into the North and buy them over the counter without any hassle? Any merchant in that area would be totally wiped out. That effect would trickle down the country if those medicines are easily accessed in the North. Farmers are no different to anyone else and will go wherever there is easiest access.