Mr. Eoin Ryan:

As Mr. Sheahan said, we operate within the EU context, but in most of the developing world TB is endemic and is very serious. It is a huge problem, as anyone who has worked in those countries will be aware. Argentina and Brazil control TB in their beef production herds by way of tests and slaughter without compensation. There is much less social support for it there. Those countries do not have the cap we have. That is one of the reasons that they produce beef at a lower cost than here. They have huge farms, but when they find an animal that tests positive for TB, they are just slaughtered. The programmes in place there are not analogous to Ireland because it is more about protecting the production of beef there. We are lucky in Ireland not to have still substantial production losses because of TB. A small number of animals here get actual tuberculosis, waste away and die, but it is not common. However, in other countries it is still a problem. It used to be a big problem in Ireland and caused a substantial production loss. Brazil and Argentina are not looking at TB eradication but rather at reducing the production losses. If positives are found, they are slaughtered.