Mr. Ray Doyle:

I thank the Deputy. We have interrogated the draft Bill. We noted what is in it. Regarding the scope of what the Government and the Department can do, the Minister has the power to retrospectively examine the 2007 legislation and empower the responsible person who was de facto prescribing. Those people were offering all the services that go into prescribing a product for a farmer, as I outlined earlier regarding active ingredients, the age of the animals, the symptoms, environmental conditions and so on, and what conditions might be required for the administration of the products. That can be done retrospectively and has been done by Governments many times over the past 50 or 60 years. Legislation has been retrospectively amended to make it compliant with EU regulations. The EU regulation came into being in 2019, but SI 786/2007 can be retrospectively amended to include the definition of persons approved for prescribing a limited group of veterinary medicines, that is to say, responsible persons were de facto prescribing antiparasitics. If that 2007 legislation was amended, it would empower us to comply with the EU regulation of 2019.