A TWO YEAR dispute about locating an EU veterinary agency in Grange, Co Meath, has been resolved. Veterinary officials had refused to move to rural Ireland from Brussels.
The Commission yesterday approved a proposal from the Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, to establish the Union's new Phytosanitary Inspection and Control Agency in Co Meath.
It will employ some 40 people in its first year, about 30 of them inspectors, whose job is to monitor veterinary and plant health standards in the EU.
Agreement to locate the agency in Ireland was reached in December 1993 as part of a move to decentralise EU institutions, and. Grange was chosen by the Government.
Officially, the delays in reaching a final decision on the agency were put down to "technical reasons", but sources inside the Commission revealed that well paid officials were not happy to move to Ireland, where some of them said they would not be able to find sufficiently good schools for their children.
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