Mr. Lorcan McCabe:

I will start with Deputy Carthy's question. There is a shift in the right direction, and if everyone follows the direction in which we are going, things will change. There are many things on which we have to improve. Fundamentally, finance must be used to tackle farms with chronic problems and herd outbreaks occurring over 300 to 400 days. If that is brought in, those farms are targeted and rigorous testing is done, it will have an impact. I believe there has been a shift in the last five or six years because of the intensity of herds and the larger numbers congregating together. As I said before, the Government should support farmers so that they do not have to expand drastically.

On the issue of the letters, I think they were ill-timed, albeit well-intended to indicate risk to the farmers. However, it did not go down well and was ill-timed. As a member of the TB forum, we did not know that letters were going to be issued. As Mr. Duffy stated, farmers were categorised and it left a bad taste in their mouths. It will be difficult to regain their trust. On the Department side, far better communication is required all round.

On Deputy Kehoe's question, we have not met individual organisations such as the IFA, the ICMSA and Macra na Feirme. We have not sat down and talked together. However, fundamentally, we are all singing off the same hymn sheet. We have seen today that there is common ground on issues such as inconclusives. We want them removed - end of story. Farmers should be paid at the going rate on the day. Most grounds are common between the organisations, albeit with a bit of tweaking.

On Deputy Kehoe's point on the issue of deer, the Department is claiming that deer density is not a huge problem. Our members are screaming to us that it is a huge problem in specific large forests.

In other parts of the country with only 40 or 50 acres, there is not a huge problem. In the specific areas it is incredible. Depending on who we speak about, there are 150,000 to 250,000 badgers in the Wicklow mountains. Farmers are being tortured by this.

There is much more we can do. Deputy Carthy asked a question and more money and staff are required on the wildlife side. The Department told me specifically that it needs more staff to target the badgers. Going back to what was said about the badgers in Scotland, there is not as high a level of badgers in Scotland as here. More money must be put in here. There should be communication with farmers so that where there are badgers, they know to close doors and keep obstacles 3 ft high to keep out those badgers. No one action will solve the problem and it will instead be about 1,000 small actions, including keeping badgers out. That message must be got across in a friendly way. There are far too many legalistic letters arriving on farmers' doorsteps. They contain legal clauses, etc. Communication is crucial.

All these actions should be implemented but the Department must realise they have to be funded. There are other considerations, including reactors hanging around too long. There are proposals that could be sped up so a reactor could go the next day, with a farmer taking the average cost. There are slight problems but we must keep at the financial implementation and science groups. The committee should use whatever influence it has to keep this pushed as hard as we can.

On the question of deer, I thank the Minister, as after our influence he visited a member of ours in Wicklow who has a major problem with deer. I know in his heart the Minister wants this problem solved. The committee should use whatever influence it has on the forum, the implementation group and everything else. I firmly believe we can sort it but upfront finance is crucial. My ambition is for no farmer to need compensation in 2030 because there would be no TB. We must front-load it now.