Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are an awful lot of inconsistencies in what we are hearing from the veterinary council today. I am disappointed. We have a model in this country that has worked well. The welfare of the animal has to be paramount. I have noted a few statements from the presentation. For example, "Ownership bears no influence on the provision of veterinary services." I am not going to swallow that pill. Unfortunately, we have an example where a corporate buying a practice has had an influence on the provision of veterinary services and an area has been left without it. That has been blown out of the water already. Ms Muldoon stated:

The clinical discretion of the veterinary practitioner is paramount, acting at all times in the interest of animal health, welfare and public health. This decision brings clarity to the matter.

In my mind it does, because the welfare of the animal often involves an uneconomical call, perhaps going to a call where the vet knows there is not an earthly hope of getting paid. Vets do that on a regular basis. This corporate structure has gained ground in other countries and the service provided to farmers is not like the service we have grown accustomed to in this country. As Deputy Fitzmaurice said, if a farmer picks up the phone and rings for a vet, he will be in the farmer's yard within half an hour no matter what hour of the day it is. That is a tremendous service. I take issue with the veterinary council's statement that it has no remit in regard to ownership. Unless there is a remit and strong ethics, the welfare of the animal is going to be put at risk. I do not question the ethics of vets because they have the track record to show that they put animal welfare at the top of the list. A corporate ownership will not put it at the top of the list. They may say they will ensure there is a 24-hour service. There might be a 24-hour service but in other jurisdictions a call-out can attract such an exorbitant fee that it is just not economically viable to bring a vet to an animal. That would result in animal welfare issues.

The question of testing has not arisen yet because the corporates are only cherry-picking the specialised practices or the lucrative small animal practices in large urban centres. However, they will go into the diary areas where there are large herds and cherry-pick the large practices and form a massive practice in that area. We have seen this model in the UK. Farmers will have the vet come to their yard once a year and engage in a programme for preventative medicine rather than provide a service to them.

I am disappointed that the veterinary council is abdicating its role in regard to ownership. It can say that the legislation says so but for 13 or 14 years the legislation said different. I just cannot understand how the interpretation of the legislation can change after 12 or 13 years. We will discuss this as a committee after the witnesses leave. If the legislation does not allow ownership of a practice to stay in veterinary hands, the legislation has to be amended. We have a veterinary practice system that is working well. There are no welfare issues in veterinary practice in this country. Now we are going to go down a road where corporates are going to have their say. We have seen it already where a practice has been closed for whatever reason and the vets who were working in that practice arrived to a locked door. The service we have known in rural Ireland could not be provided by corporate structures going forward. I had a lot of vets talking to me over the weekend. For many of them economically, it would be a good decision if corporates could buy them out because they would in a position to sell their practice and retire, but to a man and woman they were opposed to this. They feel that the service they pride themselves on will not remain and that the fabric and structure of veterinary practice that we have in Ireland will be seriously undermined.

To regulate all the aspects of delivering a veterinary service to the public, would it beneficial to the veterinary council if there was an amendment to the Veterinary Practice Act 2015 confining ownership of practices to veterinary practitioners only?