Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Sheahan for his presentation. I will be brief. I do not want to put the proverbial commentator's curse on this but usually when we have departmental officials in here for session two, we have had lobby groups or people with issues before us in the previous session so we get armed but today, everybody is singing off the same hymn sheet. Our guests have given us a good synopsis of how the process is progressing and it is to be welcomed. We had submissions from the farmer representative bodies on this previously. As I said at the start, it is possibly the first time that we are all singing off the one hymn sheet.

When the decision is made, we want things to happen quickly. Our guests are all on the same side on this so a lot of the questions that we might put to the Departments have already been asked and have been answered by the HEA. The timescale is important. I appreciate the sensitivities involved here because there was a call for expressions of interest and the HEA is working its way through them at the moment. I accept and appreciate the sensitivity there and would not expect our guests to give us any information that would be deemed sensitive. That said, is there any indication of the time scale here? I presume, given that we are now in May, that we are not looking at the 2023-24 academic year but would 2024-25 be a possibility?

I got caught out the last time by going first. I did not lobby for the Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest but all of my committee colleagues who came after me lobbied for their respective areas. I am not going to get caught out twice on the one day and am putting that on the record now. That is tongue in cheek, by the way, but we had a lot of local politics in the last session. The only question that could not be answered earlier related to the timeline. I suppose it was answered in the sense that we were told the Departments and the politicians will make a decision on when it happens. Can our guests give us an indication of the timescale involved in terms of what is progressing at the moment?

If and when we have an expansion of the number of places, could we grasp the nettle and try to become the world centre of excellence for veterinary studies? UCD is that already, in many respects. I was thinking that maybe we could specialise in the equine area. We all know of our standing in the racehorse industry. If numbers permitted, it would be great if we could become the world centre of excellence for equine veterinary training. The numbers at the moment do not permit us to bring in many people from outside the country. Indeed, we are not training enough of our own vets.