Mr. Eddie Punch:

In terms of the question asked by Deputy Fitzmaurice, by 2030 we might not have made a whole lot more progress. I hope we will have but now may be the time when some consideration should be given to "what if" scenarios. As was said, vaccination is a problem at the moment and will likely continue to be a problem because international live export markets do not allow it. What will the situation be by in 2030? Should we be looking at discussions at an international level about the requirements? As the previous speaker mentioned, should we be looking at calves under 120 days? An exemption was found during the Covid-19 pandemic and the world did not end. Should we be testing any cattle under one year old for example? What about the herds that have never had a reactor?

What we are trying to achieve is the question, I suppose, and this is more from a philosophical point of view but also whether we are going to do this for another 70 years. I do not recall in my lifetime any animal ever suffering or dying from TB on-farm. It is a kind of a disease that is there because theoretically some animals will come out with lesions. What are we trying to achieve? Are we going to spend €100 million forever on testing cattle and causing immense difficulty for farmers who have reactors if it creates no issues in terms of the food chain? If we had a scenario where, let us say, we found a different solution for live exports, could we have testing just for these cattle but not for the rest of the herd? These are just questions that should be asked, not in the short term - we are not going to do anything wild in the short term - but we should have some space to consider what we will do in 2035 if no more progress has been made. We have to try and make progress on deer and wildlife, but after that, are we going to continue testing cattle forever, even though there are no food chain implications? There needs to be a discussion on that and internationally as well. Is there an easier way of solving this? If 5% of the herd is sent for live export, do we test it and leave the rest of the farmers alone? I do not know. These things need to be looked at.

Mr. Farrell may want to say something about the pedigrees.