Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

I apologise to the Senator. We are talking about emergency situations. A non-registered and non-qualified person can treat an animal in an emergency. I am removing the phrase "administering an anaesthetic to an animal" from section 60(2). In an emergency, an anaesthetic may not be administered. Only a veterinary practitioner can administer an anaesthetic and that is how it will be.

The Senator also referred to the exceptions in section 56, which states:

(3) Save where otherwise prohibited by law, and notwithstanding anything in this Act, a farmer who is not a registered person, or an employee of the farmer acting in the course of his or her duties who is not a registered person, may carry out a treatment or procedure or administer an animal remedy on an animal owned by the farmer, which was authorised by or specified in section 46(3) of the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1931.

(4) The Minister may, by regulations, exclude from the application of subsection (3) specified treatments or animal remedies.

The normal procedures such as hoof paring and those performed either by a farmer or the farm relief service are not dealt with in this proposal. This section deals with emergencies. Anaesthetics cannot be used in an emergency but the normal day-to-day aspects of dosing and dipping sheep, looking after animals and paring hooves are dealt with under section 56. We are not being proscriptive in respect of this issue; we are dealing with what can happen in emergencies. We are removing the provision relating to anaesthetics because some members of the profession raised it as an issue.