Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am quite in agreement with the sentiments of earlier speakers about the route to veterinary medicine, and certainly the thinking would apply to other courses. Dr. Wall is correct that the points system has served this country very well. It is brutally fair, I suppose, but we would understand, and I think the witnesses would understand, that the entry requirements for certain courses can be broadened out.

In Limerick we have a very good example with the general entry medical school, which was opened probably 16 or 17 years ago. The anecdotal feedback we receive from students who have gone through it - graduates and patients who have been treated by graduates of the school - is that it works really well because they take in young people primarily, but they are not so young. They are not fresh out of school. Many of them have gone through a primary degree in some other area and bring that third-level experience to bear when they make the decision in that case to go into medicine. It gives us a diversity of graduate in that sector, and I think that would apply to veterinary medicine as well, not that I claim at all to be an expert in that area. I know a little more about engineering. When I was in the University of Limerick, UL, a long time ago, there used to be a transfer. A cohort would come in from the institutes of technology, ITs, after the end of first year or the end of second year. Those people would not have got the points to do engineering first off coming out of school, and straight away they went to the very top of the class. They were very good engineers. The system works quite well when we take a broad view of entry to some of these courses, and that thinking should apply when it comes to the entry requirements for any new veterinary school that is agreed.

I wish to state on the record my support, unsurprisingly, for University of Limerick for being as objective as it can be. It makes sense that the mid-west would have a veterinary school. The east has one in UCD. It is important the location should be near the demand. I think the demand is in the farming country of Munster, and Limerick is ideally suited there. I do not think the witnesses can tell me anything about Limerick. It does not come to them-----