Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 8, line 3, to delete “Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform” and substitute “Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform”

Amendment No. 3 proposes to replace "Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform" with the new title for the Minister that has changed since the legislation was first published, that is the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. That is self explanatory. The references to the Department throughout the Bill also need to be changed which is the reason for amendment No. 24.

Amendment No. 4 proposes to insert a definition of "companion animal".

Amendment No. 9 is a technical amendment to ensure the exact content of the data that vets or third party software parties must provide to the national veterinary prescription system can be specified. Transmission to the database refers to the fact that most vets will use their own software to send data in a readable format to the NVPS rather than the vets interacting directly with the system.

Six amendments propose to clarify which persons are permitted to sell certain categories of veterinary medicinal products at retail.

Amendments Nos. 10 and 33 are proposed to permit responsible persons to operate from a pharmacy and sell certain categories of veterinary medicines at retail.

Amendment No. 34 is proposed to ensure it is a responsible person and licensed retailer who must sell medicines retail.

Amendment No. 35 is proposed to permit anyone in a veterinary practice to sell companion animal medicines.

Amendments Nos. 36 and 37 propose to change the symbols that appear on veterinary medicines back to those we currently use in order that no cost implications for changing packaging will be imposed on the manufacturing industry

Amendments Nos. 12 and 13 are proposed to ensure the activity of dividing or changing the outer packaging of veterinary medicinal products for retail is only carried out at the time the items are sold at retail. If it were to be carried out in advance, it would be considered to be a manufacturing activity and not one that can be done by retailers. In addition, these amendments propose to permit retailers, when dividing packets of certain veterinary medicines, to either label the packet they supply or to provide a copy of a data sheet.

This change reflects what happens in retailers currently, and is a practical solution to address the requirement to provide sufficient information to the end user of a veterinary medicinal product.

Amendment No. 14 clarifies that retailers do routinely supply veterinarians with veterinary medicine products. That is considered a wholesale activity.

Amendments Nos. 15, 16, 17, 20, 22 and 23 make a number of amendments that are technical, typographic and administrative corrections, which provide clarity as to the intent of the text and contain no new substantive text.

Amendments Nos. 18 and 19 will ensure that we can import human medicinal products and not just limited to veterinary medical products. This is permitted by the national veterinary prescription system, NVPS, regulation.

Amendments Nos. 26 and 27 make two slight amendments to the wording of the original text to make it clear.

Amendment No. 29 makes a slight change to the previous text. Its purpose is to require importers to provide the means of imported fertiliser into the State, for example, by road or vessel. The amendment also requires importers to advise the Department of where the product is being imported from. This may be different from the country of origin of the fertiliser depending on the supply chain.

Amendment No. 30 corrects an error in the original text whereby the requirement to submit the quantity of fertiliser to be transferred, that is, sold by a retailer or wholesaler, was omitted.

That short synopsis deals with all those amendments, which are relatively straightforward.