Dr. John Griffin:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak. I will start with the last question on whether eradication is possible or not. Certainly from a scientific point of view there is absolutely no reason why we cannot eradicate tuberculosis in cattle. Tuberculosis has been eradicated in many countries. In the European Union the vast majority of countries are free. The actual legal requirement is 0.2% of the herds. As Ireland has approximately 200,000 herds, we need to get less than 200 to be declared free. Most of the European countries are at that stage so certainly there is no reason from a scientific point of view.