Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is no problem. I am not a member of this committee but I am interested in its work. We farmed at home in Clare. We do not do this often but sometimes it is nice to namecheck someone on the Dáil record. I refer to our local vets in the mid-west, including Kevin McNamara who is fantastic, compassionate, helpful and everything else. I think highly of vets. We hear repeatedly from farmers at constituency level that there is a lack of vets, particularly at the large animal and pet level. This issue needs to be addressed. I am from County Clare and I think the situation is different between counties. That has definitely come to the fore in this discussion.

Watching Sky News yesterday, I saw the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak flip everything on its head when he said that, because of a lack of GPs in Britain, he had decided to sign into law a measure whereby pharmacists can now prescribe certain types of medicine. While there has been a backlash to that measure, it is innovative, if nothing else. We need to be innovative about the shortage of veterinary surgeons.

Like Deputy Kehoe, I am a graduate of Salesian Agricultural College, Pallaskenry. I went to University of Limerick, UL, and I was in Pallaskenry for a while. I did not choose to be a vet but I saw a lot of people coming through the college with very good skill sets in subcutaneous and intramuscular injecting, disbudding, castration and dehorning. They did not have all of the skill sets required for large animals but some of them. There needs to be some pathway for them, provided they obtain a green certificate and a Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, level 8 qualification, to enter and be fast-tracked through this course somehow. I do not agree with the argument made on the radio in the past 48 hours that a son or daughter of a vet should be fast-tracked. Skills are not hereditary. People have to acquire them in a centre of education. Where someone has a QQI level 7 or 8 qualification, there should be fast-track pathway available. As with what Rishi Sunak did yesterday, that would provide a quick gain in addressing the shortage.

Wherever it is decided this course will be located, we need to know what the lead-in period will be. Our current crop of sixth-year students have already engaged with the CAO. Obviously, this course will not be available in September 2023 but is there an aspiration to offer it in 2024 or 2025?

That needs to be spelled out. There are youngsters who, while they might not be watching Oireachtas TV tonight, will probably read something in the newspaper tomorrow and they would like to know what is happening. The lead-in period is important.

While I know our guests cannot comment on this, I join others in saying that the University of Limerick would be a fantastic setting for this. It is in the west. We in the Houses are constantly trying to develop an economic counterbalance to the greater Dublin area. The university is perfectly positioned midway along the west coast. It is near the agricultural college in Pallaskenry. It is surrounded by the Golden Vale of good land in Limerick and not so good land in Clare. A lot can be learned by locating in UL. There is a needs to differentiate between large animal and small animal veterinary practice because there is a shortage in that regard. Most vets, when they graduate, and you cannot blame them, say it is a lot easier to neuter dogs and cats and work with nice animals in a practice rather than work on farms that may have poor handling facilities. That is manifesting itself in the numbers.

Those are all my questions. If the witnesses could respond to some of them, I would be very grateful.