John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 42: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the efforts being made to address the disproportionate cost of veterinary medicines; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40566/10]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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My Department does not have any statutory function in relation to the pricing of veterinary medicines. However, my Department does have statutory responsibility for the regulation of veterinary medicines from the point of view of public health and animal health and welfare. In exercising these functions, my Department is conscious of the need to minimise costs for farmers and pet animal owners and has, within the limits afforded by EU legislation, adopted a number of measures over the years with a view to stimulating competition in the supply of medicines.

Fundamental to these efforts has been a policy to retain a viable 'off-prescription' category for medicines which, on scientific evaluation, do not need to be prescribed by a veterinary practitioner. I might add that, during the last review of the EU medicines regime, Ireland was to the fore in opposing Commission proposals to reserve all veterinary medicines to the "prescription-only" category. We were largely successful in this regard, with the result that farmers can continue to purchase major categories of medicines, such as wormers and vaccines, from a wide range of authorised outlets, without incurring the cost of a veterinary call-out fee.

Other measures adopted by my Department aimed at empowering farmers and other animal owners to get the best value when purchasing medicine supplies include:

A requirement for all outlets to display price lists and, in the case of vets, to show on invoices the cost of the medicine separate from the cost of the professional service;

A requirement on vets to issue written prescriptions, enabling farmers to shop around and purchase from the best value outlet;

An extension of the range of outlets from which many prescription only medicines can be purchased to include Licensed Merchants, in addition to pharmacies and veterinary practices;

An extension of the maximum validity of a prescription to 12 months, thereby enabling farmers stagger their purchases to meet their immediate and seasonal needs.

I believe these measures provide clear evidence of my Department's commitment to playing its part in minimising costs. I would encourage farmers to take maximum advantage of these measures and I would ask manufacturers and distributors of veterinary medicines to play their parts in driving down costs by offering best value consistent with a reasonable commercial return.