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Allowing vets to issue prescriptions for livestock remotely could save co-op branches and independent retailers of farm goods from closures which could follow planned changes to prescription rules, the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS) has claimed.
The co-op group has urged Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue to amend the veterinary medicines bill to prevent co-ops and merchants from being cut out of the animal medicine supply chain.
The new rules will see farmers needing a prescription from their vet to buy antiparasitic, such as Ivermectin dose for cattle, and ICOS wants the proposed legislation changed to allow vets to issue these prescriptions without calling out to the farm.
Allowing vets to issue these prescriptions online will help to ensure competition in the medicines marketplace, ICOS said.
It maintains that the new rules will favour vets and act to disadvantage co-ops and private agri stores, reducing wormer supplies and increasing costs for farmers.
“There is still leeway for the Minister to revise aspects of the bill in a way that would satisfy all legislative requirements while ensuring that fair market competitive conditions are upheld,” ICOS head of livestock and environmental policy Ray Doyle said.
“A further solution can, and must be brought forward, and the minister has the authority to do so.”
Legal precedent
The co-op group argued that remote prescriptions should be allowed for antiparasitics, as they do not pose an emergency risk to animal health and there are “no human resistance issues” with products such as dewormers.
EU competition rules could further justify the allowance, ICOS maintains.
“There is precedent which empowers the minister to amend Irish legislation in order to ensure that EU law does not negatively impact on fair market competitive conditions in the particular sectors to which the bill applies,” Doyle continued.
“This power can be triggered if the Minister decides to do so.”
ICOS stated that antibiotics should not be given the same allowance regarding remote prescribing.
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