Dr. Paul Corkery:

Gathering information on a national level takes time. The way in which we gather this information is through the Department's network of regional veterinary laboratories. What it requires is substantial submissions of carcases and dung samples. It did take time. Not only in Ireland but also in other countries, it takes time, with a lot of these salient types of diseases, to be able to say that there is an emerging problem.. They are not like the viral diseases that we know of that emerge in an explosive fashion.