Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

If a practice with three, four or five vets is taken over by a corporate body, an employer-employee relationship is created but the employer is not a professionally qualified person. The employer may make decisions that are not in the interest of the veterinary profession or, indeed, of animal health. These decisions may concern drugs, medicines or other veterinary practices. There are reports from other jurisdictions of companies putting time limits on vets making calls. I do not know how this would work in rural areas here. When the council changed the code of conduct, did it have regard to this issue? I have been an employee, as I am sure many in this room have been, and whether in the case of a factory, workshop or office floor it is always the owners who make the decision. The decision would be binding and if a person did not like it, he or she could make his or her way out. It is a case of "My way or the highway".

I have received various items of feedback but I have never received or heard of a complaint from farmers about the overall veterinary profession. We have a network of veterinary practitioners who have served the country, and the agricultural community in particular, very well. If the profession is corporatised, the nature, culture and practices will change and the relationship between the farming community and the vets, such as those who serve Laois-Offaly and other areas, will break down. The quality of the service will diminish because vets will not be their own masters - that will be the owner of the corporate body. That is what we have a concern over. Their professional qualifications and years of experience, built over generations and handed down from father to son or father to daughter, will be lost. The council should have looked into this before changing the code of conduct to facilitate it.