Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to see such an interest in veterinary medicine because, a year ago, Deputy Conway-Walsh and I were being told there were an adequate number of places, and that never felt right to any of us. That is not the position now. We are doing this scoping exercise. There will, I believe, be at least one new veterinary school at the end of this. I do not want to pre-empt the process. I have to keep neutral and external to the process going on, but the point that Deputy Doherty and others make about the regional aspect is very important. In the criteria and in the issues the institutions were asked to outline, the regional impact was one because the Deputies are right in that it is more of an issue in certain parts of the country than others and it is more of an issue with certain types of animals than others. I assure people on accreditation that the competent authority is not my Department but the Veterinary Council of Ireland. It is on the board. It is on the panel. I am not. It will have to be satisfied through its accreditation process on an all-island approach. We are about to do that with medicine and there is no reason there would not be a wish to collaborate between North and South. We would be only too delighted to consider that.

On workforce planning, it is for the line Department to workforce plan, so to speak. How many vets and how many veterinary places are needed in Ireland are matters for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It will come to us and we then try to provide the places. It is the same in health and any other area.

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