Mr. Conor O'Mahony:

On the issue of risk, it is worth noting that a public accounts committee report on TB in 1994 came to the conclusion we will continue to have TB as a problem in this country when the interests of sellers supersedes the interests of buyers.

With respect to what the Cathaoirleach said about risk, we can slice and dice this slightly differently. Rather than applying a blunt instrument here, we could apply a system based on animals and their history and where they come from. There are different kinds of breakdowns. The Cathaoirleach mentioned high-risk and low-risk. The high-risk is now a breakdown involving three or more standard reactors and there is considered to be a higher risk of cattle-to-cattle transmission and on that basis a greater risk of latent infection within the herd. We could look at that in the first instance. We also need to look at animals that are going to be around for longer. There is a difference here with breeding animals. Some suckler animals could be around for ten or 12 lactations. With dairy animals, it could be seven or eight lactations. That is against an animal that is going to be finished before it is 13 months. Those beef animals are less likely to become reactors later. We need to consider that as well. We need to also a consider a breakdown where we have talked about a relapse when a farmer has had three or more standard reactors within the same cohort in a relatively short space of time. They are riskier herds.