Mr. Tim Cullinan:

I thank the Chairman. Obviously, the farm organisations have common ground on this. It is critical that we are striving together on this. I will come back to Deputy Kehoe first. Last year, we strove for bilateral discussions with the farming organisations on their own because there are many actors in this grouping.

It is most important that farmers can negotiate on their own, because they are the people who are dealing with this on a daily basis.

Deputy Kehoe mentioned funding and the hardship scheme. It is hardship. There is much hardship here for farmers. Before this moves forward, we must see the colour of the Department's eyes on this issue. The removal of infected animals as soon as possible is critical, but there must be proper funding for farmers.

Deputy Carthy's point that the definition of madness is doing the same thing repeatedly is a fair one. If one keeps doing the same thing, one will get the same result. That is why there is an opportunity here now. There is a plan to eradicate TB in the next ten years, but everyone must work together to do it. There is an absolute responsibility on the Department to engage properly, as I outlined earlier in our proposals.

The issue of the TB letters was raised earlier, and whether it was appropriate for the Department to send them out. I am certain that it was not appropriate. We had a campaign and actually burnt those letters last summer. The letters essentially categorised farmers. For example, if there is an outbreak of TB on a farm and the farmer goes through the restrictive period, before then resuming operations, he does not want everyone knowing about the situation on his own farm. If he has been restricted, he has been restricted, and that is why.

A good point was made that EU funding is declining. No wonder it is, because this has been going on for 50 years. However, at the end of the day, the Department must work with farmers on this issue. We are not going to accept less funding to address this issue until we are on the road to eradicating TB. As I highlighted at the outset, farmers have already put more than €50 million into this programme. That is more than adequate. Not only are the farmers putting in the funding, but they are also suffering with loss of dairy cows in particular in the spring. That also impacts upon suckler herds.