Aug 21st, 2009

ICMSA say time to take on vets' monopoly on TB and Brucellosis testing

ICMSA has proposed to the Department that lay technicians would take over from Vets for the annual round and pre-movement testing for TB and Brucellosis. Jackie Cahill said that if introduced over a two-year phased arrangement the ICMSA proposal would reduce the round and pre-movement testing cost to farmers by up to 60%.

‘I am confident that lay testers can be trained in a short period to be fully competent to carry out the TB testing and the taking of blood samples. I’d point to the system that operates in Wales which complies fully with EU law and UK veterinary legislation. Our initial examination shows that the legislation in Ireland is similar to the UK legislation. But even if they were needed any necessary changes to this front could be brought in by Ministerial Order’, said Mr Cahill.

‘The whole veterinary monopoly with regard to animal health must now be addressed. For too long, the veterinary profession - like all professions - have used spurious arguments to continue their monopolies. It is an astonishing fact that at a time when nurses routinely take blood from humans that Irish Vets, backed up by the Department administrative apparatus, insist that only vets should take blood from livestock. Equally, the two-stage testing for TB can be carried out just as effectively by trained technicians- as they have demonstrated in Wales. The final decision on whether or not the animal is a reactor would continue to be taken by a Vet based on the reading supplied to him or her by the technician’, continued the ICMSA President.

Mr Cahill said that a switch over to veterinary technicians for all routine farm testing of TB and Brucellosis could save farmers with 140 animals at least €600 per year and sector as a whole €36 million in a full year.

‘We see this change as just one of the many changes that must be brought in to restore competitiveness to Irish farming. The use of on-farm veterinary technicians would compliment the deployment of similarly trained technicians in factories for beef inspections. The use of veterinary technicians in meat factories under the general direction of a vet is now the general arrangement across the EU. Indeed, there is surprise that Ireland still has arrangements whereby vets have a monopoly in the provision of this service which loads a huge cost onto farmers’, he added.

Jackie Cahill said that farmers are not at all convinced that the costly system in Ireland of vets’ monopolies is required because we are an exporting country. He described it as the kind of lame excuse and monopolistic fig-leaf that had destroyed Ireland’s competitive ability.

‘This is self-serving nonsense as the UK system clearly shows. However, we do not expect our proposals to be readily accepted by the vets. Indeed I will be surprised if there is not a barrage of protests from Veterinary Ireland. But that shouldn’t – and can’t – change the facts’, he concluded.

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