Author: Alan Matthews

Legal challenge to attempt to cut payments to pharmacists

Another group has taken the legal route to try to prevent a government decision to reduce expenditure, this time the Minister of Health’s decision to reduce payments to pharmacists for dispensing drugs to patients. Eilish O’Regan, the Irish Independent’s health correspondent, has two good articles outlining both the background to the dispute and giving some details on the money at stake to individual pharmacies in today’s issue of that paper.

The case (see Irish Times report here), which is being taken by the Haire group of pharmacies, claims that the cuts will push it into a loss-making situation meaning it cannot repay its bank loans and will thus become insolvent. The pharmacies want an injunction restraining the Minister applying the regulations. Among various claims, they allege failure to provide 30 days notice of the change in the payment regime was unlawful and breached their constitutional rights. The case is being prosecuted by Gerard Hogan, SC who is also representing the teachers taking a case against the government for closing their early retirement scheme. The application for the injunction will be heard on Monday next.

If the main argument made by the pharmacies is that the Minister did not give the required 30-day notice, this would appear to simply delay rather than prevent the implementation of the cuts, which seems a lot of money simply for a few months’ reprieve. If the Minister lost on that basis, I presume she would simply start the process again giving proper notice. One assumes that the pharmacies want to prevent the cuts indefinitely, but the basis for this argument is not clear from the reports.

Milk market transparency and competition

The EU Commission today published a report on the EU dairy market. It is mainly concerned with setting out the portfolio of measures available to alleviate the very difficult milk market situation. Demand for milk products, particularly the higher value products such as cheese and fresh products which account for 70 per cent of EU production, has been adversely affected by the economic downturn. At the same time, there has been a collapse in world market prices, due to a combination of production increases by other suppliers (New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, Brazil) responding to the dramatic increase in dairy product prices in 2007-08 and a drop in global demand due to the economic crisis.

The report also deals with the widening gap between the price paid to farmers for milk and the prices charged to consumers for milk products. The figures for Ireland are particularly startling, even if the pattern for other EU countries is broadly similar. Between Q4 2007 and Q1 2009, the price paid to farmers for raw milk in Ireland fell by 43%, with corresponding reductions in the wholesale prices paid for butter and skim milk powder of 44% and 41%, respectively. However, the CPI for the product category ‘milk, cheese, eggs’ (which includes other milk products but excludes butter) actually increased by 9% over the same period, compared to a 4% increase for food products generally. From the CSO databank, I calculated that the corresponding increase for butter was 2%, which while smaller, is still extraordinary in the light of the 44% decrease in the wholesale price of butter over the same period.

The Commission report underlines that this is not just an Irish problem. However, the Competition Authority’s recent investigation into grocery prices which recommended a relaxation of planning restrictions to encourage greater competition in the retail trade does not seem an adequate response to this total absence of price transmission in the dairy supply chain. At a minimum, we need much greater transparency in how margins are distributed between producers, processors and retailers.

An Bord Snip: Agriculture, forestry and fishing

The reaction to An Bord Snip Nua’s proposed spending cuts in the agriculture, forestry and fishing (AFF) area has been predictably intense. The overall savings proposed are €305 million, out of total voted expenditure of €1,985 million (or €1,655 if EU receipts under the Rural Development Programme which count against this expenditure are excluded), amounting to a reduction of 15.4% on voted expenditure (18.4% on the national contribution to  this voted expenditure). Taking all of public expenditure, An Bord Snip Nua identified potential savings of €5.3 billion or 9.3% of relevant expenditure. It therefore seems as if the AFF area will be asked to take a disproportionate share of the overall cuts. However, while I have some quibbles with the details, it is hard to disagree with the overall thrust of the proposals, and indeed I think some expenditure schemes were lucky to survive. I look at the details of the proposals with respect to agriculture in this post.

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Legal challenge to cancelled retirement scheme

I have previously discussed on this blog whether groups disadvantaged by fiscal policy cutbacks might seek to protect their position by means of a legal challenge using the concept of ‘legitimate expectations’ (see also a revised version of this post in the Irish Times). It looks like we may get further clarification of this issue in a High Court case which is being taken by four secondary school teachers who are challenging the government’s suspension of an early retirement scheme.

Apparently, the scheme was due to run until the end of this year and counsel for the teachers, Gerard Hogan SC, is claiming that they were legitimately entitled to expect to avail of it.

The court’s decision will clarify whether other groups adversely affected by a policy cutback might seek to go the legal route to attempt to reverse it.

Who pays the cost of food safety?

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has published the results of its investigation into the pork dioxin crisis in Ireland last December. This crisis was caused by contaminated oil being used in a food waste recycling plant in Co. Wexford resulting in elevated levels of dioxin above the EU legal maximum in some pork products. Pigs on those farms which had been fed contaminated feed were slaughtered and all Irish pork products produced since 1 September were recalled from the home and export markets. The Joint Committee report describes how the contamination occurred and identifies a number of weaknesses in the food safety control system. However, the broader question of who should pay for food safety is left unexamined.

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