Tyrone GAA co-manager ‘honoured’ to be appointed NI’s new chief vet

Brian Dooher will take up the post of Chief Veterinary Officer later this month.

He will be paid between £96,722 and £108,118, and takes over the role from outgoing chief vet Dr Robert Huey.

His appointment was confirmed by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) on Thursday.

The current deputy chief vet, Mr Dooher co-manages the Tyrone team with Feargal Logan.

He said: “I am honoured to have been selected for this role and it will be my privilege to lead my veterinary colleagues to support our farming and food industry.

“I will work constructively and collaboratively with DAERA staff and stakeholders, delivery partners and colleagues in other administrations, in Ireland and in the EU on areas of common interest and to meet the future challenges across animal health and welfare and public health.”

Mr Dooher graduated from University College Dublin with a degree in Veterinary Medicine in 1998 and later worked in private practice for seven years before joining what was then known as the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in 2005.

The Chief Veterinary Officer provides advice to DAERA, Executive Ministers and other parts of government and beyond.

He also leads a team of over 650 staff working across field, operational, policy and administrative functions.

But Mr Dooher is perhaps best known for his exploits on the Gaelic field.

A three-time All-Ireland winner with Tyrone, captaining them in their 2005 and 2008 triumphs, he took on the role as co-manager with Mr Logan for the county football team in 2020, succeeding Mickey Harte.

The duo guided Tyrone to the 2015 All-Ireland Under-21 title.

The outgoing chief vet, Dr Huey, cost taxpayers millions after having a central role in the appalling treatment of Tamara Bronckaers for simply attempting to do her job properly.

An employment tribunal judge disbelieved all of Dr Huey’s evidence which conflicted with that of Dr Bronckaers, describing his evidence as “deeply unsatisfactory” and not "candid, reliable or full".

Despite Dr Bronckaers winning comprehensively after a five-year legal fight, Dr Huey then authorised the expenditure of public money on an appeal which he hoped might overturn the devastating finding against him – despite the fact he had a glaring conflict of interest.

But DAERA then backed down and settled with Dr Bronckaers.

It paid her £1.25m – the biggest such payment in Northern Ireland’s history – but also spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on investigating what had gone on.

According to DAERA's recently-published 2022/23 accounts, Dr Huey was on a salary of £100,000-£105,000 and had a pension pot worth £999,000.

Dr Huey is now in line for a pension of about £45,000-£50,000 a year – far above the average wage – and a lump sum of about £125,000-£130,000.

Last week Mr Huey had a complaint about this newspaper’s reporting of a scandal involving Ms Bronckaers rejected by the independent press regulator, Ipso.

His complaint related to two articles published last October.