A decade-long dispute between vets and the Department of Agriculture looks set to continue.

Veterinary Ireland has confirmed that five of its members are to appeal a decision by the Employment Appeals Tribunal, made in April this year, to the High Court.

The organisation is supporting the case made by five Cork-based vets against the Department of Agriculture, support may have cost Veterinary Ireland an estimated €720,000 since 2005.

The case centres on five Cork-based vets from who worked as temporary veterinary inspectors (TVIs) for the Department of Agriculture on the line at the now-closed Galtee Foods Meat Factory.

John Barry, Conor O’Brien, Mary O’Connor, Michael Spratt and Ciara Dolan inspected pigs at the Galtee Meat factory, prior to and after slaughter, to ensure that they were disease free.

Their role was to provide support to the technical veterinary inspector (TVI), who was a permanent employee of the Minister for Agriculture and who was the veterinary officer in charge of quality assurance, compliance and related matters at the meat plant.

The Galtee plant closed down in October 2004, with Galtee employees made redundant and the plant’s full-time Department of Agriculture employees, the veterinary inspector and agricultural officers, transferred to other meat plants.

The TVIs were advised that there was no further work available for them in the plant.

Since then, the five vets, supported by Veterinary Ireland, and the Department of Agriculture have been embroiled in a lengthy dispute over the employment status of the TVIs.

The Department of Agriculture maintains the TVIs were engaged on a contract for service and that they were not employees of the minister.

However, the vets maintain they were employees and therefore entitled to payments under the Redundancy Payments Acts and the Minimum Notice Acts.

Since 2005, details of the case have been heard in the Supreme Court, High Court and the Employment Appeals Tribunal.

In the most recent decision, the Employment Appeals Tribunal found that the vets were not employees of the minister.

However, Veterinary Ireland chief executive Finbarr Murphy told the Irish Farmers Journal the five vets intend to appeal the decision to the High Court.

There are around 800 vets across Ireland on TVI panels, with 650 working some shifts in meat factories in any year. TVI work is worth €13m per year to the vets involved.

Murphy said that while the current case related only to the five Mitchelstown vets, “further down the line, the decision would certainly have implications for all TVIs”.

When asked about the legal costs associated with the case, Murphy said he did not know the total cost to Veterinary Ireland and would prefer not to say but the organisation “worked to manage our costs”.

Correspondence to Veterinary Ireland members, seen by the Irish Farmers Journal, reveals that the case has cost an average of €60,000 per year, taken from a 1% levy on TVI members.

This would amount to €720,000 to date on the 12-year dispute.