May   2003   VOLUME 56: Number 5 Veterinary Ireland Journal Page CONTENTS Peer review articles are available in full as  Acrobat PDF files You will need to download the Acrobat reader    which can be got free at this web site

EDITORIAL   

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Competition Authority looks at the veterinary profession

In 2002, new competition laws handed to the Competition Authority enhanced powers to tackle aggressively anticompetitive practices in all facets of Irish business. It is the

single determination of the Competition Authority that it should flex its newfound muscle, and, part of its enforcement programme late in 2002 was to conduct surveys and report on

eight professions, of which the veterinary profession was one. 
The Competition Authority engaged the UK-based company Indecon to undertake the project. Surveys were conducted to determine public perceptions of these professions and to

investigate the structures and activities of each of them. In relation to our profession, information was sought from Veterinary Ireland , the Veterinary Council and the Faculty of

Veterinary Medicine. The results of those surveys and Indecon's interpretations of the data have now been published in a 600-page report.

Anyone reading the executive summary of the report will find that what is written about one profession is repeated in very similar terms for most of the other professions: for example,

phrases pertaining to lack of competition in the provision of professional training are applied to veterinarians, engineers and lawyers alike.

The report suggests a number of areas that merit closer examination. For instance, Indecon would enlarge the annual intake of students into undergraduate training in veterinary

medicine.

While it may be a benefit to competition to increase the number of students graduating into the profession, there are other extremely important considerations that would not

warrant the adoption of that particular recommendation. If the prolonged struggle to relocate the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine from Ballsbridge to the university campus at Belfield

has taught us anything, it is that the provision of modern facilities and adequate academic and support staff is enormously expensive in terms of both financial and human resources.

Realistically, the nation cannot meet the requirements for significant expansion at the existing Faculty or for the creation of a rival training facility at another third-level institution. Have

we - have the decision-makers - learned nothing from the dismal history of rival schools at Ballsbridge, both seriously under-resourced, as graphically recounted in A Veterinary

School to Flourish, the book edited by W.J.C. Donnelly and M.L.M. Monaghan to mark the centenary of veterinary education in Ireland ?

Some forty years ago, a supine profession submitted to an outrageous political decision that was to retard the evolution of veterinary training on this island for several decades. Memories

of that sad experiment in bicameral veterinary education are sufficiently fresh to galvanise the profession into resistance to any attempt to dissipate scarce resources on a similarly

inefficient, penny-farthing fragmentation. History has armed us with incontrovertible educational precepts on which to argue the case. University College Dublin has given us a Faculty of which we can be justly proud; now, the onus is on the profession to advocate that it be given all available resources to ensure that there is no dilution in the quality of its graduates, alumni on whom the nation can rely confidently for sterling services in the complementary fields of animal health and public health.

The report accepts that the number of study places available is constrained by exchequer and university funding and it goes on to assert that, while this may point to the need to re-examine the funding of veterinary education in Ireland , it also underscores the importance of facilitating entry to the Irish veterinary profession from external sources. On that score, it expresses concern in relation to the absence of recognition of  non-European Union/European Economic Area trained  veterinary surgeons who wish to practise in Ireland . It argues that, “facilitating entry of "third-country" nationals would be beneficial through the diversity of training and experience acquired by these individuals in their home countries … so long as they possess the education and training standards  expected of the profession in Ireland .” That is the crunch issue,  the criterion by which the Veterinary Council has invariably exercised its statutory role in relation to entry to the Veterinary  Register. It has to satisfy itself that instruction at the Faculty of  Veterinary Medicine is of a high, specified standard and that the professional knowledge and standards of non-national registrants are comparable. Thus, it offers assurance that the health and welfare of animals and the quality of food products of animal origin are being supervised by thoroughly competent veterinarians.

The report focuses on the competitive impact of existing restrictions on advertising, incorporation of veterinary practices and the registration and role of veterinary nurses. While the national media has enjoyed examining Indecon’s 600-page  report, and scrutinising the professions it surveyed, it has failed  to realise that virtually all of the restrictions identified in respect  of our profession are outside of our direct control. The report itself acknowledges the logic behind the restrictions imposed in  legislation and otherwise.

We laud the ethos of the Competition Authority; we look forward to the consultation papers it intends to produce and to the opportunity to make constructive responses on behalf of our profession .

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