Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 24 May 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

New School of Veterinary Medicine: Discussion (Resumed)

Photo of Joe FlahertyJoe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. We agree it is a case of speed and there is a need to scale it. Everybody here agrees there is a high level of burnout among vets. It is an extremely difficult job. Especially for people with young families, it must be well-nigh impossible. With approximately 80 places in UCD for training vets, Mr. Moriarty has quite rightly pointed out that we are coming to a cliff edge with the age profile of our vets. We are going to have a major problem. The MRCVS wants to have new graduates coming out in 2030. What is the optimum number in this regard? Has the group looked at this aspect? How many new graduates do we need to be producing, bearing in mind that vets are always going to travel and go overseas? It is a good thing that they go abroad. If people spend five years training, they are going to want to travel and go and work with the best. What, then, is the optimum number of new graduates we should be producing annually?