Mr. Liam Hanrahan:

I thank the Chair and the Deputy for their questions. While they have been comprehensively answered by my colleagues, I will add to a few of those answers.

Certainly the seller in the mart will be at a disadvantage. If the seller wants to maintain the number of buyers, he or she will have to be the one doing the pre-movement test. If you are on the back foot, there are no prizes for guessing who is going to have to pay for it then. We are obviously adamant that the Department should pay for that pre-movement test in that case. There is no doubt about it that the farmer will definitely be on the back foot there.

If a person has off-farm income, he or she is not eligible for the hardship grant. We are very adamant that people should be eligible in certain cases. I know of a member of ours who does an extra half day's work a week and had a TB outbreak and could not get the hardship grant. You do not get paid that much for half a day's work. In other cases, a suckler farmer who has a TB outbreak and poor prices in the same year is going to be under serious pressure. In the dairy man's case, if he gets a TB outbreak this year and the price of a lot of his milk is fixed, he will have a serious problem altogether. Obviously this is if people have an off-farm income, and in some cases people do.

From a deer perspective, there is a management group. On the badger culling, speaking from experience, it is necessary to follow up. A farmer is responsible for his or her farm and following up is very important. On the vaccinations for TB, obviously we would love if we could move the goalposts from a science-led point of view, but our markers do not allow it as it will not fit the eradication laws. The pre- and post-movement testing has been explained. Our only concern is that the implementation of new rules would lead to more rules again. If it were the case that all animals being moved had to be tested pre-movement, that probably would not be too practical for someone who sells through the mart weekly or fortnightly. If a person has store cattle, weaning sucklers or beef heifers and starts drafting the animals for sale from August to November, he or she will be picking out the cattle on a fortnightly basis. If that person needs to do a pre-movement test, is he or she going to be testing every fortnight? If that were to be the case down the line, we would be concerned if extra testing came in.

I am not sure if the six-week rule around the selling of calves is of any benefit. During Covid we moved that up to 120 days and we saw it allowed for the spreading out of the sale of calves. This might actually suit all involved, the buyers included, as it would encourage better quality calves being allowed for sale and weaned calves to be bought and sold easily. It might be a solution to a number of other issues.