Mr. Brendan Gleeson:

I thank the Deputy for the question. I have a feeling we had a conversation about this the last time I was in and it may have been with him. I was looking at some statistics for this programme going all the way back to the 1960s. There is kind of a common narrative out there that the programme has not achieved anything. However, back in the 1960s, in one year, we had 156,000 cases of bovine TB. The reality is now we have got it down to a low level. The numbers are much smaller than that – in the 20,000s. It is just more difficult now. We have a persistent low-level disease and it is very difficult to get rid of it. We need an eradication plan because we could not trade without it and we have to work with farmers to pursue that.