Under the relevant EU legislation, only those veterinary medicines containing approved active substances may be administered to food-producing animals with effect from 1 January 2000. This legislation applies not just to horses, but to all animal species defined as food producing under EU legislation. There is concern both in Ireland and in other EU member states about the absence of a full range of treatments arising from the application of this legislation.
Ireland has been actively seeking a solution to this problem at EU level and in the absence earlier this year of a proposal from the European Commission, my Department formulated a specific solution aimed at horses. This proposal was designed to ensure that the most up to date approved treatments would continue to be available for horses through the application, where necessary, of a lengthy period of exclusion from the food chain to safeguard human health. Despite the fact that our specific proposal was not adopted, the European Commission has now formally committed itself to bring forward proposals to address this difficulty. I have been in touch with the relevant Commissioners to impress on them the urgency of bringing forward such proposals and the importance to the horse industry in Ireland, as indeed elsewhere in the EU, of continuing to have access to a full range of treatments, with, of course, due regard to the need to protect consumers of horsemeat. My Department will continue to press the Commission to expedite this matter in order to avoid the potential specific difficulties from 1 January next referred to by the Deputy. As of now, there are some grounds for hoping that the Commission's proposals will emerge in the near future.
