Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Senator Browne is correct. It is always a mystery to me what cannot be done. Some extraordinary things are attempted and it is no surprise when the Supreme Court sometimes throws out such initiatives.

I will state again that we now have a completely new part of this Bill, Part 7. The Bill, entitled the Irish Medicines Board (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2005, now involves amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act, the Irish Medicines Board Act 1995, the Control of Clinical Trials Acts, the Health Acts, etc. When the Bill was introduced in the Seanad, I stated that it was being made into an extremely complicated piece of legislation. The contents are perfectly understandable. It appears to be the proclivity of the Department of Health and Children to make simple items more complicated.

Anybody now searching for the updated position on any parts of this Bill will need to employ a lawyer to figure it out, as it is now scattered. Why could this not have been done by a series of short Bills? For the future of our food industry and to move up the value added chain, to use an awful cliché, it is extremely important that the use of animal remedies should be properly regulated and that the appropriate fees should be charged.

Who will pay these fees? If it is the farming organisations, directly or indirectly, the Minister of State can expect yet another row because they seem to have a profound hostility to anything that costs them money, as distinct from what costs the rest of us money to help them out of a difficult spot.