Denis Naughten (Longford-Roscommon, Fine Gael)

I wish to speak to the three amendments in my name and that of Deputy Crawford. Amendment No. 2 questions the reason a veterinarian cannot represent animal welfare groups. I accept the point made by the Minister on Committee Stage that she wants to maintain a balance on the Veterinary Council. She wants to make sure that there are not too many vets on the council. However, I do not understand why the chairperson of the ISPCA — to use the example I gave in this regard on Committee Stage — who traditionally was the person normally appointed to represent animal welfare groups, should be disbarred from representing that organisation on the Veterinary Council simply because that person holds a veterinary qualification. That is not satisfactory. I do not believe that there will be too many vets. The legislation should not be prescriptive in that way. I will not go into this amendment in further detail because we articulated this point well on Committee Stage.

We also discussed amendments Nos. 4 and 15 on Committee Stage and the Minister gave a commitment that she would examine the position in this regard. I raise these amendments because for some unknown reason the legislation has been worded as if there is only one institution in the State that provides veterinary qualifications, but that is not the case. The National University of Ireland provides the majority of qualifications here, but HETAC also provides qualifications, and account is not taken of that in the legislation. Members of the Athlone Institute of Technology are extremely annoyed it was not consulted under any guise on this legislation. A significant amount of the legislation directly relates to the institute and it was never consulted. No recognition, whatsoever, has been given to the Athlone institute in the legislation, yet one other institution is implicitly written in, namely, UCD or the National University of Ireland. As I said on Committee Stage, either the NUI should be taken out of the equation or HETAC should be included, for the sake of balance. The legislation has a provision whereby as a default mechanism the NUI nominates members to the Veterinary Council of Ireland. Even at this late stage will the Minister of State consider inserting an amendment, in consultation at least with HETAC, so that at least it has a consultative role as regards this? These are the only two awarding bodies in the country and I cannot see the logic of precluding one of them.

The Minister, Deputy Coughlan, in her response on Committee Stage, said nothing precludes her, as the Minister, from specifying any particular institute of technology, and that is correct. Yet, why does she have to include one body and ignore the other? There are only two relevant institutions in the State and I cannot understand why one of them has to be precluded from the legislation. I ask the Minister of State to seriously consider that argument. HETAC is an awarding body and there is absolutely no mention of it. The representatives on the ground in Athlone Institute of Technology are very aggrieved that they were not consulted as regards this legislation. They feel they deserved to have an input, just like everyone else. What really annoyed them is that implicit in the legislation is one institution while the other is ignored.

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