Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 202: To ask the Minister for Agriculture; Fisheries and Food the measures he will take to reduce the cost of farm inputs to levels comparable with Northern Ireland and in particular veterinary medicines; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17780/11]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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It is not within the power of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to control farm input prices as they compare to any other jurisdictions, however my officials do monitor all movements in input and output prices produced by the Central Statistics Office. The latest Annual CSO figures available, for 2010, show that overall input prices dropped by 1.6% during the year (see table below). This, combined with a 11.9% increase in output prices, meant there was a 13.8% change in favour of farmers in the Terms of Trade during last year. Included in these figures was a marginal increase of just 0.2% in the price of veterinary expenses.

It is not within the power of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to control farm input prices as they compare to any other jurisdictions, however my officials do monitor all movements in input and output prices produced by the Central Statistics Office. The latest Annual CSO figures available, for 2010, show that overall input prices dropped by 1.6% during the year (see table below). This, combined with a 11.9% increase in output prices, meant there was a 13.8% change in favour of farmers in the Terms of Trade during last year. Included in these figures was a marginal increase of just 0.2% in the price of veterinary expenses.

My Department does not have any statutory function in relation to the pricing of veterinary medicines. However, it 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.

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.

In addition to the foregoing, the policy of my Department is a 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 strongly opposed 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.

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.