Mr. John Keane:

The main question was around the issues for farmers as opposed to the merchants and so forth. The number one issue that has come back from our members is market competition, as Mr. Maher touched on. The number of suppliers within the market may become diminished as a result of this. Mr. McCormack touched on the local merchant, which is convenient, as well as the ability to avail of credit. There are certain times of year when there is a strong demand for supports for animal health measures on farms, which do not necessarily coincide with times of year when cash flow is strong. The availability of additional credit through a merchant is something a lot of farmers welcome.

The other aspect that has been raised is data sharing. The ownership of those data and the freedom the Minister has to administer the database and share it with whoever he or she sees fit to share it with is a major obstacle for our members moving forward, given the interested parties that may require or request access to the data. Some of that has been touched on as well.

Another issue is access to antibiotics in a timely manner. Farmers will know that access to intervention in case of disease is one of the most important things in determining the outcome of the disease. Timely access to medication is important. We understand that prescription medicines and antibiotics have a five-day period in which the prescription falls due. Let us take, for example, a cow that comes in with mastitis on a Sunday morning and the farmer is without a prescription. I am not sure how many vets would thank the few hundred farmers, or even a few thousand, who would be ringing them every Sunday morning looking for a prescription for mastitis tubes. There must be some workaround to facilitate that within the Bill. A point was made before about the timeframe within which this is going to be implemented. Farmers have little understanding about what direct implication this is going to have and little knowledge is being shared with them on it.