Máire is the Deputy Head of the Irish Department of Agriculture’s Laboratories.  She is a graduate of University College Dublin’s (UCD) School of Veterinary Medicine.  Following a period in mixed practice she returned to UCD to do a PhD and a residency in veterinary pathology.  She joined the Irish government’s Central Veterinary Research Laboratory (CVRL) in 1994.

Her work within CVRL was initially largely focussed on TSE and food animal diagnostic pathology. In 2019 she was appointed as Head of Bacteriology and Parasitology Division, with responsibility for National Reference Laboratories of TB, Antimicrobial Resistance and zoonotic parasites.  In July 2024 she was appointed as Deputy Head of Laboratories. 

She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (farmed ruminants and pigs), a previous examiner for RCPath and is on the Specialist Register of the Veterinary Council of Ireland. 

Shane McGettrick is Senior Research Officer in Sligo Regional Veterinary Laboratory. He graduated from University College Dublin in 2001 and worked in mixed farm animal veterinary practice before joining AFBI and subsequently DAFM as a Veterinary Research Officer. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (farmed ruminants and pigs). He works daily in a busy PM room and is heavily involved in farm animal disease surveillance and diagnosis. He is particularly interested in using pathology expertise to better understand the interaction of farmed animal disease with humans, wildlife and the wider environment in which animals live. Current active research interests are surveillance of tick borne flaviviruses on the island of Ireland and development of forensic pathology protocols to investigate wildlife crime.