Mr. Michael Sheahan:

No. It is relatively recent, over the past two years or so. We have a comprehensive programme in place to deal with it and are confident the graph will go down again next year. Deputy Cahill asked why we do not move to the blanket vaccination of badgers. That is our plan. In recent years, we have been culling approximately 6,000 badgers and vaccinating approximately 1,000 every year. We will roll out vaccination gradually over the next three or four years so that at the end of that period, we will vaccinate 6,000 badgers and cull 1,000. Over time, we plan to move away from culling, by and large, and our plan ultimately is to vaccinate every badger in the country. However, we will still need to carry out culling in some areas in which there are particularly bad outbreaks of disease. In general, our plan is to move to blanket vaccination of badgers. Deputy Penrose asked why there was a 30% limit. To clarify, there is no limit on vaccination. We can vaccinate every badger in the country and the NPWS has no difficulty in that regard. However, the badger is a protected species under the Bern convention, which means there is a 30% limit regarding the land area in which we can cull badgers. We cannot exterminate the badger population. It is as simple as that. That is why there is a 30% limit. The Deputy compared this to draining the River Shannon and I am sure he was not being entirely serious.