Danny Healy-Rae challenges TB testing, urges better compensation

Thank you Chair. First of all we want to welcome these men here and thank them for coming in just because of course TB is a very serious matter and this testing has been going on for 46 years I think. Is that right? 70 years. Well and we understand that other countries have it cleared and I mean the obvious thing and the farmers in my neck of the woods some are blaming the deer others are blaming the badgers but invariably it is one or the other because they start the thing going in different areas where the deer are prevalent and other areas where the badgers are prevalent. Do we agree with that? No we don't. What we have is we have TB in a multi-host system where badgers and for the most part our evidence would show that badgers are the main reservoir infection in wildlife but we have a multi-host system where it's a combination of badger infection in badgers and cattle and we cannot cherry pick between either. They're the main drivers and given that we've about 7 million cattle in the country with about 120,000 to 150,000 badgers. Based on those figures the driver of infection is coming from cattle. I'm sorry but I don't agree with that. Certainly they're the carriers, badgers. You're entitled to your opinion Deputy. You're entitled to yours too of course. But this is a very serious matter because like the Deputy said about mental health, he's right of course because it's an awful traumatic experience. your herd is nothing, no animal in the yard, everything has gone down the road and it happened to people in the Dlenfleski area last year and that was in October the fall of the year and the compensation they got in Norway could have replaced the amount of cows that they had they had to accept they could only buy a lesser amount because cows and animals and all kinds of stuff increased in price and subsequently they wouldn't compensate it properly. Do we accept that? I might answer this Deputy. You raised this point the last day I think when the Minister was here. If you call those animals that were reactors of compensation in October and he went out, if it was the same farmer they went out to replace him in March or April I think it was roughly the example you gave. So we compensate farmers based on the market valuation at the time that they are removed. So in this case it was in October. Up to the limits of the scheme. Obviously in the meantime the market for all animals has just taken off. But we can only compensate at the value of the animal that we receive in the market at the time it's removed as a reactor. Not on what it might cost to replace that animal at a future point in time. That's what we are. So tell us now, what are we going to do? Are the TB injections going to be stronger? Is there going to be a stronger vaccine? You know, stronger than when the vid comes? Will it be a stronger dose? Then, you know, is that what's going to happen? In terms of cattle? Are you talking about cattle vaccination? Yeah. I'm going to hand over to Dave. We don't have a cattle vaccine available. You mean in terms of the TB skin test? No, but the way he detects the skin test. Is that going to be stricter or stronger or what's the plan? Well, I suppose, yeah, there are a couple of different elements to our plan and one element of it would be ensuring good quality testing and maximising the quality of the testing and running in parallel where appropriate the blood test where we can, where there's difficulties to increase the overall sensitivity of the test to run the two in parallel where necessary. So, you mentioned there about the cost to the department, the cost of the chicken. But it is a cost to the farmer. And we're continuing that the farmer did not create this problem. You're saying that it's going to be a better test. What was wrong with the testing that was done all along? Well, it's the testing in conjunction. We intend to roll out more gamut to figure out blood testing in conjunction with the skin test. And there's some farmers that have gone down in recent months and they're being told that if they'll be selling cattle in the future, as far as we're three years down the line, that their name is going to appear on the screen and the map and that, you know, that it will reduce the amount of people that will buy that. Is that going to happen? I think what you're talking about there is a risk-based trading approach. And one thing that is being considered, yes, is identifying animals, higher risk animals, so that people, if they decide to buy them, that they will know those animals carry a higher risk. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Deputy.