The fallout continues from the rollout of the new veterinary medicines bill, with a number of merchants, vets and the Department of Agriculture officials appearing before the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture last week.

The bill centres around the battle between vets and merchants, and the ability of each to sell prescription-only medicines and vaccines.

The new legislation was to be enacted on 1 June, but this has now been pushed out to 1 September, when farmers will need a prescription to use anti-parasitic products.

This, the Department of Agriculture says, will allow more time for engagement with vets on the new national veterinary prescribing system. Merchants fear that the way the current legislation is being interpreted by the Department of Agriculture will see the closure of many small merchants when the new rules come into effect later in 2025.

Vets argue there won’t be an issue and the Department of Agriculture says its hands are tied in relation to EU law and the new rules must be acted upon.

These new rules will see farmers having to get a prescription for the use of anthelmintics on their farm.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Offaly merchant Ollie Ryan said: “The way the Department of Agriculture is interpreting the legislation and enacting it is completely unworkable from a merchant point of view and mark my word, it will result in closures of rural businesses before this year is out.”

The Department of Agriculture argued that vets have engaged with the system and that they currently have 80% engagement with vets on it.

Response

Ray Doyle from the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS), who also appeared before the committee last week, said: “The Department of Agriculture is saying that vets are engaging with the new system but in reality, they aren’t. Yes, they may have registered on the new system, but they aren’t using it.

“We know that there are about 10 million scripts issued annually or over 800,000 a month and here we have 85,000 scripts issued from 1 January to end of May 2025. So that’s about 10% usage.

“The most indicting figure of it all is that merchants and co-ops only got 85 of these or 0.1% to purchase products, so vets have essentially held onto the market for themselves.

“That shows you what’s going to happen come September. Saying the vets are participating in the process isn’t true. The figures don’t lie,” Doyle said.

“Vets haven’t complied with the new legislation and have been given an extension to come into line.

“If new slurry spreading laws came into effect on 1 July, do you think the Department of Agriculture would give leeway on the implementation of those laws?

“They certainly wouldn’t, and that’s one of the most frustrating factors here, vets seem to have a free rein when it comes to this,” he said.

Restrictions

Ray Doyle of ICOS said the new rules were “writing merchants and co-ops out of business”.

“If a farmer goes into a merchant and looks for a dose for calves. The merchant will ask him why do you need it? The farmer says the calves are coughing, but once the farmer says the calves are coughing it’s a treatment, so a vet has to become involved,” he said.

“Everybody agrees that increased vaccinations will lead to healthier animals, but here we have the Department of Agriculture trying to restrict the availability of vaccines through allowing these only be sold by the veterinary profession. More vaccinations will mean less antibiotic usage and therefore less chance of resistance in the future. Farmers are the ones who will lose out, particularly on price,” Doyle predicted.

“If you restrict the sale of anything to one provider, you know what happens – the price goes up. We’ve seen that already with the sale of intramammary tubes. The price has gone up since farmers had to engage with their own vet as opposed to their co-op vet,” Doyle said, adding that merchants’ share of the intramammary market went from 40% to 2% when prescriptions were introduced.