The Department of Agriculture is considering a legal opinion which suggests staff in co-ops and licensed merchants could continue prescribing anti-parasitic medicines under the new vet medicine rules.

The opinion points out that there is precedent for the Minister for Agriculture to amend 2007 legislation to retrospectively recognise and provide a legal basis for such ‘responsible persons’, according to Ray Doyle of ICOS.

Questions on the opinion were put to Minister of State Martin Heydon at a meeting of the Oireachtas agriculture committee on Tuesday. The committee was undertaking pre-legislative scrutiny of the Veterinary Medicinal Products, Medicated Feed and Fertilisers Regulation Bill 2022.

A number of TDs and senators present, including some from Government parties, warned that the bill will not pass in its current form.

Minister Heydon confirmed that the Department had received the legal opinion and said that it would be “fully considered and deliberated on as soon as possible”.

He told the committee that he would “love to see this being a solution” and that if it could work, it would benefit “everybody involved”.

The bill in its current form bans the sale of antiparasitic medicines in co-ops without a prescription from a vet.

‘Monopoly situation’

Committee chair Jackie Cahill said he hopes the legal opinion is “taken on board” and warned that if it is not, “we’ll find ourselves in a monopoly situation and this will only increase the cost of these products for farmers”.

“It will achieve nothing for animal welfare,” he said.

Pointing out the potential for job losses in rural co-ops if Minister McConalogue does not follow the legal opinion, Ray Doyle said: “If the minister has the will to do it, he has the legal mechanism. The question now has to be asked, why isn’t he doing it?”

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