Ms Niamh Muldoon:

The Deputy referenced the excellent veterinary service provided around the country. In that regard, I must outline the role of the council in regulating the practice of veterinary medicine and veterinary nursing by the individuals who deliver that service all around the country. The VCI's role is in terms of safeguarding our register to ensure any person on it is fit, suitable and suitably qualified and educated. We accredit and approve the programmes of education such as veterinary medicine in UCD and the veterinary nursing courses around the country. Members may have some experience of these from relatives graduating from them. All these inputs work to support the standards, from continuing veterinary education throughout the career of any vet and veterinary nurse, to the code of conduct which is binding on any vet or veterinary nurse in the country. All these tools available to us as a regulator help to support the strong standards we enjoy in the country.

Regardless of any model of regulation, be it on the individual, a veterinary practice or on ownership, no regulator will be able to control the deliver of services per se.They are market matters. Regardless of the preferred model of regulation, that cannot be controlled. The current model is similar to that enjoyed by the medical, dental and pharmaceutical professions. Regardless of the model or regulation, which these Houses will ultimately determine, the role for the VCI as regulator is to ensure we can effectively regulate those standards, as we have been doing for many years, and that his country and all the consumers and farmers around the country, and ultimately society, benefit from those high standards enjoyed in the regulation of vets and vet nurses by the council, through all the means available to us.