Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Question 22: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food the steps she is taking to provide a countrywide and weekend veterinary service for the issue of prescriptions for animal remedies; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5632/06]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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Veterinary practices are primarily commercial entities and their locations are driven by commercial realities. However, in so far as State involvement is concerned, I can point to a number of recent measures which will alleviate difficulties which may arise in certain parts of the country.

First, under the new Veterinary Practice Act which came into effect on 1 January 2006, provision is made to enable the Veterinary Council for the first time to recognise qualifications from applicants in third countries generally. This, taken with the recent enlargement of the EU, will make for improved availability of practitioners to meet shortfalls that may arise on the supply side. Second, the Animal Remedies Regulations 2005, which I signed into law on the 17 November 2005, contain a number of measures which will enable veterinary practitioners and their farmer clients to avoid difficulties in this area. These include changes to the prescribing rules in terms of the need to clinically examine an animal and extended validity of prescriptions, the details of which I have already outlined in the House.

The regulations also include a provision which, in a genuine emergency situation and subject to appropriate safeguards, will enable a pharmacist to supply a prescription medicine in advance of receiving a written prescription. Finally, I understand that Údarás na Gaeltachta provides funding to subsidise veterinary practices in some remote areas in consultation with the local farming community.