Dr. Vytenis Andriukaitis:

I will continue.

It is important that members listen to those who are directly responsible. I hear many rumours that people can buy beef with hormones in the EU market. That is fake news and it should not be disseminated. There were big attacks against me when we discussed TTIP issues between the European Union and the United States. Many NGOs opposed me and Commissioner Hogan because they were blaming us, saying we were ready to diminish our food safety standards. Nothing will happen with food safety standards because they are clear. The committee must understand we do not have a one-way approach but two ways. I have pictures on my phone of restaurants in New York, for example. We are not using beef laced with hormones, antibiotics or GMO feeds. This is about EU standards which are acceptable in Brazil and the United States. It means that we can be proud to say our food safety standards are being applied around the globe. Producers are keen because consumer information is a much more powerful instrument. We are sending our audit teams. For example, we do not allow beef to be sent from Brazil, except from 20 establishments. Beef from four of the biggest has been stopped because of food fraud. We have figures and the volume of beef coming to Europe decreased very much in one month because of our restrictive measures. Reference was made to chicken. It will be good to once again assess the situation on the ground here because nobody can use antibiotics as growth promoters in the European Union. It would be a disaster for producers. It is a rumour. We immediately send teams to carry out audits because it is against the law. It is a big problem because there are legal consequences.

When members speak about AMR, I refer to veterinary medicine and medicated feed. There are two Bills on the table at the Agriculture Council and I ask Ireland to be active on them because we need to finalise adoption between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission. The Commission's proposal is to stop the use of antibiotics in medicated feed because of the possibility of using antibiotics in feeding animals. It means that only in treatment and only if there are indications from a veterinary point of view they should be used. Beef with hormones is not allowed into the European Union and we will ask our services directorate to provide additional information.

On vaccination and the anti-vaccine movement, I encourage my colleagues, the medical doctors, to be ambassadors for vaccination and vaccinate themselves. I vaccinate myself every year, together with Ministers. Last year the Polish Minister and I vaccinated ourselves against influenza to set an example.

We are ready to do the same again and we disseminated photographs through social media and so on. I have asked our scientists to be more vocal and to provide knowledge to all in society because there are so many rumours opposing vaccination.

The anti-vaccine movement use strange messages relating to autism, which are terrible. They are responsible for the deaths of children in Spain, Romania and Berlin. It is painful to understand that today we are not even in touching distance of a measles-free Europe. Shame on us and shame on me. I will do my best and ask all members to stay strong and come together to promote scientific-based arguments to all society, otherwise it will be a disaster. We are, of course, using awareness campaigns with the WHO and Margaret Chan. It is important to see how different countries behave. Anti-vaccines in Brazil are weak because of the Zika virus, yellow fever and death. Old people ask us to provide new vaccinations. Brazil is measles free.

It was the same with ebola. I was in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea when the ebola outbreak started. People asked us to help and provide a vaccination but at that moment we had no tools. We provided money and today we have vaccination. We dedicated €46 million to create vaccines against Zika.

Reference was made to antimicrobials in water, which is an important issue. We are in the final stages before presenting a new action plan. We have taken a topic about the environmental composition of monitoring of antibiotics. Nobody knows how many people use antibiotics in Dublin and monitors residuals to see which are going out. No one is controlling the antimicrobials in sewage and water and we have no understanding.

There are problems in big cities not only because of animals but because of people using antibiotics. There is a concentration of large farms, factories, hospitals, and cities and we must draw attention to water, sewage, the environment and how to detect situations. We establish a so-called consortium of laboratories. More than 30 laboratories have joined up and we asked them to monitor soil, water and environmental issues and to report the picture to us because at the moment we have no clear evidence. We have enshrined it in our new action plan and we have asked the European Environment Agency to be responsible for creating a monitoring system for water, soil and the environment. Big harbours and airports also have AMR bacteria. We must control ways of transmission, otherwise it will be a disaster because the EU is open, particularly in respect of trade. We need a system of monitoring ways of transmission and the Deputy's points are high on the agenda.

Orphan drugs is another issue. Today we have many instruments.

As the committee will know, there is paediatric medicines regulation which helps us to introduce more business models to help the industry to provide new treatments. Why? Let us say there are 10,000 people suffering from very rare diseases. Can one imagine how many industries would be keen to produce medicines if there were no market incentives or strategy? The provision of innovative medicine initiatives incentivises industries to join forces with academia and clinicians. There are more than 400 hospitals that deal with rare diseases. The instruments encourage the establishment of consortiums.

It is important to draw attention to pricing. In stimulating smaller countries one can get them to sign and use and put money into joint procurement agreements to use scale of economy to buy orphan medicines together. More than 18 countries are ready to co-operate, especially in the area of hormone treated beef, HTB, and vaccination in which we have found success. We have a very detailed plan to help them to use joint procurement agreements to buy modern vaccines. Of course, they are very costly and it is especially very difficult to tackle hepatitis C, but we will use our resources in only one way. We need to encourage countries to work together because scale of economy helps to reduce prices. Cyprus, Malta and Lithuania have no chance of covering all of the costs involved. There is, therefore, only one way to succeed. Ireland must co-operate with other countries in that regard. Today we have a strange picture. There are 28 markets, which is fruitful for the industry. Interestingly, having one single market is much more powerful when there is tête-à-tête. One can play the game and make a profit. My advice to everyone is, please, co-operate. We are ready to help Ireland. We can teach it how to deal with the industry because we can advise from our side. Countries, especially smaller ones, need to work together. For me, the answer is crystal clear.