Mr. T.J. Maher:

I thank the Deputy. As we have outlined, the whole area of the cross-Border two-phase implementation of this process undermines, as we see it, the ability of the country to proceed with an all-island approach to reduction of antiparasitic and antibiotic usage and undermines the whole food island concept. It will be crucial, through the combination of the Northern Ireland protocol, that we operate in one system to ensure we do not have a Border. Let us be honest about it: there will not be a Border. Deputy Carthy has plenty of cousins in the North of Ireland, the same as every person along the Border, who will have the opportunity to purchase products at a different rate. It will totally undermine the position of the farmer in this country. It cannot be allowed to proceed without uniformity across the State.

The national veterinary prescription system, NVPS, is a critical piece of national legislation that we need to implement to comply with animal health law in Europe. We need that recording capacity to protect us as farmers and highlight the fact that Ireland has low antibiotic usage on farms and monitors and records reduction in our anti-emetic use going forward. At the moment we are exposed without that because we do not have clear trade patterns to identify opportunities to promote our country as a low-usage antibiotic system. The weakness we have is that we are eight weeks from its supposed relaunch and have not been presented with the updated system that was shelved for six months to allow further clarification of the system and allow it to work on farms.

The key issue for us is that the farmer should have the right to take a prescription and fill it where he wishes and to ensure that, where there are multiple prescriptions, the supplier of any of those pieces of medicine can only have visibility of that prescription, not of all his prescription, because that weakens his position in the supply chain. If, for the sake of argument, I want to buy my antiemetics from my local co-op, naturally I have to buy my antibiotics from my vet and want to get my vaccinations from another outlet, I have to be in a position to separate those out and trade as I normally have done, while retaining the advantage of recording those. This will be a critical piece of infrastructure for us but it has to operate in a manner which retains competition in the system and protects the right of the farmer to choose his supplier.

Another issue in terms of that data which has been highlighted on numerous occasions is that as farmers we are becoming very aware that we are the source of valuable data. Our food is essentially feeding many parts of the world. The control and management of that to respect the rights and production of the farmer is crucial to ensure we can control that in future.

On the vacuum in terms of legal opinion which the Deputy has indicated may or may not be there, we are running to a cliff edge. To be fair to the suppliers in the market, other than the vets at this stage, they are running into a situation where they have to ask whether they stock or not. It is completely unfair for those businesses to be operating in those circumstances. We believe that a trained, qualified person, as indicated by the HPRA report, requires a multifaceted approach and multi-supplier level to deal with the issue going forward.