The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has said that farmer data from the new National Veterinary Prescription System (NVPS) database will not be shared with external bodies without prior discussion.
President Michael D. Higgins signed the Veterinary Medicinal Products, Medicated Feed and Fertilisers Regulation Bill, 2023 into law on July 11, after the legislation had made it through both houses of the Oireachtas.
The new law introduces new regulations for veterinary medications and fertiliser.
DAFM
The regulations include a provision for the introduction of new database to record veterinary prescriptions and dispensing of veterinary prescriptions.
Any person who issues a veterinary prescription or dispenses a medicinal product or medicated feed on foot of a veterinary prescription will be required to record this on the national database.
The legislation states that the information from the database may be shared with a number of national statutory and regulatory bodies such as Bord Bia, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) and the Veterinary Council of Ireland (VCI).
The data can also be shared with the EU Commission and the European Court of Auditors (ECA) “for the purpose of audit and control”.
Some concerns had been raised by farming organisations about the sharing of farmer data.
However, a spokesperson for DAFM told Agriland:
“Any decisions surrounding the sharing of data with these bodies will only be made after engagement with all relevant stakeholders.
“As part of the design of the database, the department spoke to all stakeholders.
“Discussions took place around the possibility of the data being shared including for Quality Assurance (QA) purposes, but the department highlighted that no sharing of any data will take place before any further discussion with farmer representative groups,” they said.
The department added that Bord Bia had been included in the legislation “in the event that farmer representative groups wish for their veterinary medicine prescription data to be shared with Bord Bia for the purpose of allowing farmers to prepare for Quality Assurance audits”.
DAFM noted that the new regulations provide for “the sharing of data from the NVPS, it does not provide for the accessing of data by the bodies listed”.
It is expected that this section seven of the act, which relates to the sharing of data, will become effective by way of a commencement order later this year.