Mr. Tom?s Bourke:

I thank the Acting Chair. I will cover off two or three of those and our vice chair, Ms Mooney will, take the others.

The first question asked by Deputy Carty related to the effectiveness or otherwise of the badger vaccination programme. From our perspective, we do not believe it is an effective front-line tool to reduce the levels of TB. We first had concerns about its effectiveness when we saw what happened in Monaghan a number of years ago. Monaghan had one of the lowest incidences of TB when a vaccination programme was introduced in part of the county. Coincidentally, there was a strong correlation between that part of the county and where the most severe TB outbreaks occurred. Subsequently, there have been outbreaks in neighbouring counties.

The original field-scale trials that took place in the north Kilkenny area show that we are one of the worst areas in the country for TB, as is evident from the published TB updates from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It is clear that the vaccination of badgers has a role to play where density has been reduced, but it is critical that the population is also managed. We see all too frequently that where the density of badgers has increased in the vaccination areas, the level of TB is increasing and we are having far too many outbreaks among cattle.

If we go back to the concerns that the Committee of Public Accounts, rightly, had about the overall cost of the TB programme, farmers also have huge concerns about the cost to us of the programme. We believe that there needs to be significant upward investment in the tools that have been proven to reduce TB, which is effectively a reduction in the number of badgers in infected areas. Such a programme was carried out reasonably effectively from 2000 up to 2010 or 2011 and resulted in a reduction from 44,000 reactors to approximately 13,000. Unfortunately, the eye was taken off the ball. We do not need to reinvent the wheel here. The key to reducing the overall cost of TB and achieving its eradication, as has been evidenced in all jurisdictions where that has been achieved, is to deal with it in wildlife. The areas that have been most successful in the shortest timeframe are parts of the world that did not have a problem with the disease in wildlife. Scotland is the nearest example. When we engaged with Scottish farmers, we were told that was the key driver. We got presentations from experts in Australia, New Zealand and America. Everybody has the same issue. We will not address TB in the bovine population until we address it in the wildlife population. An effective wildlife programme based on density reduction is the key. It is the case that when we have the disease under control there is a potential role for vaccination, but it must coincide with a management tool for the population. Badgers, no different to deer, do not have a natural predator in this country.

In the context of us being unable to control the dogs that are supposed to be licensed here and to manage the atrocities that they are responsible for in sheep farms, I would not like to see where we would end up with wolves.