I will respond to Senator Daly's questions through a small address. I will then answer his questions directly.
The issue of a responsible person's right to issue prescriptions for products that did not require a prescription in the past is not the only issue at stake here. The Irish dairy, beef and sheep industry depends heavily on having a suite of antiparasitic products that are effective and continue to allow Ireland to capitalise on its natural advantage of growing grass and turning it into valuable protein sources for an estimated 60 million people worldwide, whilst generating an income for more than 120,000 Irish farm families and over €14 billion in exports for Ireland's GDP.
The committee needs to be made aware that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has delegated the design of the new prescription-only medicine prescribing regime to the Veterinary Council of Ireland, VCI. In our discussions directly with the Department, it insisted that ICOS meet directly with the VCI to air our concerns on creating a practical, transparent, fair and internationally defendable prescribing regime for prescription-only medicine products for food producing animals. At a recent meeting between the VCI and ICOS, the VCI publicly expressed its view that the current legal method via Schedule 8 of the Animal Remedies Regulation 2007 of using data to assist veterinary prescriptions, cannot be allowed in the absence of a costly clinical visit which cannot on its own diagnose clinical and sub-clinical disease of certain mastitis and parasite conditions but data assisted diagnosis can in isolation detect these infections even before they affect animal productivity, let alone welfare.
Increasingly, data is now being used in all aspects of human and veterinary diagnosis. Even on farms the use of robotic milking has empowered farmers, in consultation with the veterinary profession, to intervene early in treating animals and drive down the overall use of valuable antibiotics in Irish agriculture. For example, Catherine McAloon stated at a recent Animal Health Ireland, AHI, sow check meeting that usage of antimicrobials, through the current mastitis control programmes as administered by the co-ops via the Schedule 8 remote prescribing legislation, has resulted in a dramatic 43% reduction in antibiotic usage over the 2015-2019 period.
However, during this time our overall national usage of antibiotics has increased which must have been as a direct result of antibiotics being prescribed and supplied via the vet-only channel, which relies almost entirely on costly clinical visits as per the VCI guidance. This clearly has not worked in driving down antibiotic usage but the VCI is adamant it should be the only route prescriptions are generated on. Preventative medicines such as vaccines, many of which are prescription-only medicines, must be increased in their use and availability to Irish farming if we are serious in driving down antimicrobial resistance and antiparasitic resistance. Yet many of these products are currently not available through the co-op network and remain a veterinary only channel of supply.
Dairygold, one of Ireland's largest co-ops, has reduced its sales of antibiotic dry cow tubes by 35% in the last ten years, even within the context of an increase of 40% in cow numbers, and increased its sales of a simple teat sealer in the same time frame by 64%. It is not in the co-ops' interest to increase sales of antibiotics, anthelmintics and antiparasitics. However, it is in the co-ops' and farmers' interest that they can deliver them in a timely and cost-effective manner to all farmers when required. The use of multiple data sources through laboratory, on-farm dairy advisers and co-operative vets has delivered for Ireland and must be allowed to continue.
There are currently three possible options available to Ireland to resolve this issue, and, in the absence of doing nothing between now and next January 2022 when the European regulation must be transposed into Irish law, we are faced with three options: status quo regarding the point of sale of anthelmintics, inter-mammaries and antiparasitic drugs via co-op branches, independent merchants and pharmacies where responsible persons are allowed to generate prescriptions for all antiparasitic products, but the Irish Government is going to need to seek changes directly to the EU regulation in this regard if this is to become a reality; prescriptions generated via co-operative vets to farmers when they are part of an overall herd health plan and prescriptions generated on accurate data decisions for select drug types and ruminant species remotely with a clinical visit; or break the dispensing and prescribing links completely and align it with current best human practice. Indeed, several other competing EU countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Italy have done so with their farmed animal prescriptions for maximum transparency and the least market disruption.
We are running out of time on this issue. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine needs to decide the policy that is best for Ireland and not delegate its responsibility in this regard to other stakeholders who can create a legal framework that will only enrich one profession and damage the competitiveness and sustainability of the entire food production chain.
