Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is also worth saying to farmers, if they are listening, that this is money that is not being taken from their budgets. We simply would not have this money if we were not spending it on the World Food Programme. It is part of Ireland's overall development aid contribution. In case farmers think we are taking it from the moneys for areas of natural constraint, ANC, or the beef genomics scheme, we are not. The money for the World Food Programme is spent through the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine because we have a very good relationship with the organisation. I have just been to Ghana. It is the Department of food, as well as agriculture. It is part of the Government's broader commitment to provide development aid and humanitarian assistance and is being paid through the Department and has more than doubled. A sum of €60 million for the World Food Programme over the next three years represents a significant commitment and if people want to know what it means, one can feed two refugees in Syria for $1 dollar a day. Therefore, €60 million will go a long way in feeding people who have nothing in terms of possessions or finance.

We are making phenomenal progress in dealing with TB. It is a great story. We have saved a large amount of money, but, more importantly, we are moving towards trying to eradicate it. My personal ambition is to eradicate in Ireland by 2030, which is possible as a result of conversations we have had with veterinary officers and so on.

It is the first time ever that we are actively talking about eradicating TB entirely from Ireland. That is a statement that will probably be quoted back to me in the future but that is what we would like to do. We will keep the pressure on to try to eradicate TB. We clearly need to have a more focused effort on doing that in places like Wicklow. There has been a 40% reduction in the incidence of it since 2008 and a 7% reduction since 2014. That is 1,000 fewer animals, so that is a great saving.

On the brucellosis side, we are now brucellosis free on the island of Ireland. They have done great work in Northern Ireland in eradicating brucellosis. They were well behind us on that. Until they were brucellosis free in Northern Ireland we could not make a statement that Ireland as an island is brucellosis free because of the movement of cattle across the Border. My colleague in the North has done very well on that. It has been a joint effort and there has been a great outcome.

On Deputy Ó Cuív's question about the islands, my understanding is that we are budgeting for spending of €2.5 million for the islands this year. In terms of areas of natural constraint, ANCs, to be clear on this, the profile for ANCs that we set was for €189 million to be spent by the end of November and we have spent €189.5 million, so we are bang on with what we said we would do on ANCs. If we have more room to spend money, I am very anxious to get money out to disadvantaged areas, particularly given the weather we are facing at the moment. There is always stacking each year because payments carry over into January. Sometimes that is a useful tool for staying within budget and sometimes we can try to prioritise to get more spend in one year, which is what we are trying to do this year in that we are trying to get extra money out to farmers that are in ANC or disadvantaged areas.