Efforts are underway to seek the establishment of a Veterinary College in Limerick to help tackle a "significant shortage of vets in practice, particularly in rural areas", according to a local Fine Gael TD.
Hundreds of qualified vets are being lost abroad due to a lack of learning spaces in Ireland, said Fine Gael TD, Kieran O’Donnell.
Mr O’Donnell said he has been liaising with a veterinary working group aiming to secure a vet college at the University of Limerick. He said they have successfully lobbied the Minister for Further and Higher Education Minister Simon Harris to support their request for the Higher Education Authority(HEA) to seek expressions of interest to provide additional third level Veterinary places.
The HEA has publicly sought these expressions of interest from higher education institutions, which have to be returned by 18th November.
"UCD has the sole Veterinary college in Ireland, with 92 student places, which does not anywhere near cater for the demand, and this year there were 581 first preference applications for UCD Veterinary alone," said Mr O’Donnell.
The Limerick TD said there are "currently 260 Irish students studying Veterinary in Warsaw, Poland, however there are also students in Budapest and Slovakia".
Mr O’Donnell said the request for expressions of interest are "a key and major step forward towards the establishment of a new Veterinary college in Ireland" and furthermore, he said he believes that “UL is the ideal location for a new Veterinary college, with it being based in the heart of the Golden Vale, and it has a very successful record in the setting up of a new faculty, as we have seen with the Medical School”.
"Critically, the HEA process is looking into capacity over a number of years into the future rather than just the next academic year, which re-enforces the absolute need for a new Veterinary college in Ireland as well as UCD, and I will be strongly advocating for this to progress."
