ICMSA say new arrangements for ‘Vet-Only’ anti-parasitics will cost farmers dearly.

Speaking after the Minister for Agriculture, Food & Marine, Charlie McConalogue, signed the Veterinary Medicine Bill into law last Thursday, 12 September, the Deputy President of ICMSA, Eamon Carroll, said that the changes in the law are un-necessary, unjustified, will not improve animal health and will certainly add to farmer costs at a time when stubbornly high inputs were already nullifying the slow recovery in product prices.    Mr. Carroll said that ICMSA had long called for antiparasitics to be available through licenced merchants, pharmacies and Co-ops, but he said that the Minister’s decision to classify them as ‘Prescription Only Medicine’ means that “yet another” decision has gone against the farmers and the Minister has sold-out farmers and their co-operatives to the veterinary lobby.

“This is just the latest in a long and depressing line of decisions where every single ‘50/50’ goes against farmers. Every time the Government has a chance to either give farmers a small break or load another expense on them, they choose the latter. What’s even more infuriating on this issue is that there’s no compelling reason to think that this will help towards better animal health or that there was any outstanding abuse of anti-parasitic medicines. To us in ICMSA – and to farmers in general – it will just look like a professional group saw a chance to ‘corner a market’ at farmers’ expense and the Government was perfectly happy to let them do just that, said Mr. Carroll.  

“There were options available to the Minister that would have made the supply of anti-parasitic medicines convenient and more cost-efficient, while respecting the professionalism of farmers – for which this Government appears to have no regard.   As is by now their habit and despite ICMSA’s arguments, the Government has decided to take the option that is more expensive and inconvenient for the farmers while – as time will show -failing to deliver more effective use of veterinary medicines.   We all want to see the responsible use of medicines and there was a clear ‘pathway’ to achieving that without loading more costs and inconvenience onto farmers”, said Mr. Carroll

The ICMSA Deputy President concluded by calling for the SI to be reviewed so as to protect farmers from the higher cost environment that will inevitably follow.  He said that farmers were “absolutely sick and tired of being treated as ‘cash-dispensers’ by professionals and service-providers and he said that the system must be held accountable for decisions that seemed to have little or no object other than getting more money out of farmers.”

Ends 16 September 2024

Eamon Carroll, 087-6312945

Deputy President, ICMSA.

Or

Cathal MacCarthy, 087-6168758

ICMSA Press Office