Dr. Alan Wall:

As I understand the Deputy, the issue is around the number of places we have here. The exercise we did on the expressions of interest was to ask the higher education sector what it could provide, and that is what we have used to structure our report to the Government. There are 82 places through the CAO. Roughly 600 to 700 students apply for them every year, so there will always be students who will go away. It is part of the European experience for students to be educated in Europe. It is not necessarily a bad thing and many of them are coming back, but that is notwithstanding the fact that we would not have undertaken this exercise unless we thought there was an issue to be solved around the number of places we have.

From a system point of view, it is worth saying again that the higher education system has been very good at providing and dealing with the massification of students. This is an exercise where we asked the sector to look at it again and it has come back. What we have given to the Government is a report that opts for a number of scenarios around solutions. It is not so much options between institutions but a scenario about how things might be done, such as regional balance or different ways of veterinary education. That is what we are trying to do, but being aware that we are never going to fully solve the problem and suit every student who wants to be a vet.