Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is a good sum of money and it is one of the best targeted schemes. Is there anything the Minister can do to help young farmers? He will have to grab the bull by the horns and think about stretching into a pot to help young people come onto the land. An early retirement scheme will have to be looked at again and there will have to be a farm insulation aid grant for young farmers. The amounts were only between €8,000 and €10,000 but they were very important.

I always look to see how much tuberculosis eradication costs. The Minister knows my view on that. We have pious aspirations about 2030 but I will have the Shannon drained before that and TB will still not be eradicated. I do not know where we are going to go with this. Some €5.5 billion has gone since it started and another €1 billion is planned. We will have to look at new ways of dealing with this as it is taxpayers' money. New Zealand has achieved the objective and they set out to do something about it in Australia too. Professor Simon More gave us a very detailed talk about it but he also delivered some home truths. I understand a TB group is looking at an evaluation of the situation and the various methods that could be used. I do not have a solution but going down the same way of dealing with it between now and 2030, or even 2050, will not work. Somebody will have to change something.