Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will take up where Deputy Cahill left off. There is a lot of concern regarding the impact of the decision to open up ownership to laypersons. In my county, practices have closed down having moved into lay ownership. Many concerns were raised about this in advance by both vets and Veterinary Ireland, which is the representative body for the vast majority of practice vets and which represents 1,200 out of 2,000 practitioners. It is the only such representative body. The council flagged concerns it had, having done a lot of research, and it has outstanding questions on behalf of vets that it would like to be answered. They presented members of the committee with these questions and we feel the best way to get answers is to go through those questions. This is important in order to understand the rationale for this decision and the impact it is going to have if it is not addressed, whether that is by the Veterinary Council or through legislative change.

In a submission to this committee of 24 January 2018, the then registrar stated that legal advice was obtained on the issue. Does the Veterinary Council have documentary evidence to substantiate this statement? Was the legal advice in writing? Did it deal with the issue of lay ownership or did it just deal with incorporating veterinary practices? Incorporating veterinary practices could be done by vets, while lay ownership is a different issue.

Was that advice in writing and did it concern the issue of lay ownership specifically?