Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I accept the Deputy's challenge. When I became Minister, the view, not just in my Department but also in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, was that we had enough spaces, which I thought was kind of crazy. The only place providing veterinary medicine at the moment is University College Dublin and, as the Deputy quite correctly said, as we have discussed on many occasions before, quite a number of Irish students are studying abroad. By way of example, 208 Irish students are enrolled in a veterinary medicine masters programme in Warsaw and 78 Irish veterinary students are enrolled in Wrocław University in south-western Poland, and so on. I think 190 students are in Budapest. Slovakia attracts a smaller number, according to a combination of media reports and reports available to my Department. Yet we only have University College Dublin providing the course here. I am not suggesting the Deputy is doing this, but what we really must not do is to suggest it is about one institution over another. What we have here is a horizon scanning exercise. I stand over the expert panel, which includes the chief veterinary officer and the Veterinary Council of Ireland, and its credibility and authority. It will do its work and will report to me in March on what can be done within existing programmes to expand this and on whether new schools can be created. We will see what that menu of options gives us and will take it forward in March.

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