Ms Caroline Garvan:

My point is that he is Senator Brady's vet. He understands what the Senator has used in the past and what issues he has had. He has got the results of the faecal egg count. He knows how the Senator's animals graze the land, so he or she has the knowledge to give a prescription. The protocol, which we have devised to support the retailers, is for a vet that has never been on one's farm, never seen a farmer's sheep or the test results. That is the difference.

On simplification, the electronic prescribing system will stop farmers having to have paper prescriptions. They will get them all on a central portal on the agfood.ie portal. All the prescriptions will be there. Farmers will no longer need to have paper prescriptions, so that is simplification.