Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

Yes and I take both of those points. We also looked at the option of a dual tissue tag. I will not say that it has had huge difficulties but it has not worked out for us. In this regard we must work with the tag companies, the laboratories and with the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation. For now, we are sticking with the current arrangement and that is what we propose to do for 2018. The BVDP tag is a scheme with a limited life. The tagging arrangement around the conventional tag and the tissue tag is a permanent, ongoing arrangement. Putting in a third button tag - as it is called - for BVD may seem a bit over the top, but it is for that specific scheme. It is a different function to the other two tags.

The other possibility to suggest itself is to have two tissue tags and no conventional tag, but there would be concern around the security of that.