Mr. Liam Moriarty:

Yes. The shortage of vets is broad. I am privileged to work in a companion animal practice in an urban setting and we are probably best placed to hire vets, yet it is always a struggle. This issue will be most acutely felt by my colleagues in rural practice who have more difficult working conditions, longer working hours, etc. Many of the vets who are in university right now start out with the intention of working in companion animal practice. They are not even thinking about working in mixed practice. When I went to university, you were expected to work in mixed practice. When I say "mixed", I mean a mixture of farm animal and companion animal. The vast majority of practices do some companion animals or pets and some farm work. We have more and more part-time vets. Many of my colleagues work part-time. My wife is a vet, as is my sister. They do not do full-time clinical work, yet they are on the register.

The larger number on the register is positive. The industry is growing. There is a greater need and there is a greater variety of work, but we need to train more people. We are fortunate to have a super university that is ready to go and start a new course, with graduates hopefully in 2030. There is a crisis looming. Given the current age profile, we need to act quickly on this. It is good that the industry is growing and high-quality work is being done, and we are an integral part of rural Ireland and the communities in which we work, but we need more people. I hope that the committee will recommend that we move quickly to starting a course at University of Limerick that will take students in in 2025 and output them in 2030.