The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is looking to hire temporary veterinary inspectors for its meat inspection services.

The inspectors will be based at department-approved meat processing plants at various locations around the country.

Suitably qualified individuals must be a veterinary practitioner registered with the Veterinary Council of Ireland (VCI). They must also submit a fully completed application form.

Individuals who have been permanently removed from meat plant panels arising from concerns in respect of their conduct or performance, in accordance with appropriate procedures, will be considered ineligible to apply.

An upper age limit of 70 will apply for new entrants to candidate panels.

The application process consists of several stages. Applicants will only be offered a position on the panel for a meat plant if they fulfil all requirements at all stages.

Scanned and signed applications must be submitted electronically, and must be submitted by the closing date of Friday, April 17, at 5:00p.m.

Where more applications are received than required for a panel, a lottery system will be applied.

When the application process and lottery process (if necessary) is carried out, applicants will then be subject to a suitability assessment.

This will involve applicants submitting tax clearance and medical certificate documents to the department.

Applicants will also be required to undertake mandatory training, which will consist of an online induction course and 30 hours of on-the-job training.

When candidates have completed these requirements, applicants will be placed on the panel of candidates for the relevant meat plant.

The current hourly fee payable for meat inspection services is €94.78.

There are vacancies for temporary meat inspectors at 25 meat plants, with the number of vacancies ranging from one to 10.

'Low throughput' meat plant inspectors

Separately, the department is also seeking 'low throughput' temporary veterinary inspectors to work in some meat plants.

In this case, the plants concerned are smaller-scale facilities that slaughter animals, and are smaller operations than the typical meat processing facility.

For example, a butcher business that slaughters animals itself can be classed as a low throughput facility.

The number of facilities where low throughout temporary veterinary inspectors are required is over 50, across several counties.

Applications for these roles must be made by May 1 at 5:00p.m.

Apart from those details, the application and recruitment process is broadly similar to the process for applying as a temporary veterinary inspector in the 'larger' meat plants.