asked the Minister for Agriculture if he will state the number of fully qualified veterinary officers who have been attached full time to Abbotstown research station continually during the past three months.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Abbotstown Research Station: Veterinary Officers.
19.
The number is five.
Would the Minister take steps to have this disease made notifiable?
Which disease?
The Deputy is on the wrong question.
The Minister knows all right and he knows of the delay about grants from the Department of Local Government, under that imperturbable Minister. What is the full number of qualified veterinary officials that should be employed at Abbotstown?
I have replied that the number is five.
The Minister told me eleven last year.
I cannot remember.
I can remember. Is it a fact that the "Irish Times" sent photographers to Abbotstown some time ago and that they took photographs here, there and everywhere in the place? To show how busy they were and that they do everything—as the Minister says, they attend to everything: they never sleep—they had men with white coats in all the laboratories. Is it not a fact that these men wearing white coats were not fully qualified veterinary officials at all and that they were just technical assistants?
That would be a separate question.
I would suggest that it the Deputy is making an allegation against the members of the profession employed by my Department, perhaps he should make it in a different form.
I am making no allegation against the veterinary profession in the Department; the Minister has driven most of them out of it.
If the Deputy is making an allegation against the "Irish Times", I shall deal with it in the same way.
I am making the allegation against the Minister. The Minister has nobody out there.