Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Laboratories are able to test all calves that are born for bovine viral diarrhoea, BVD and the beef data and genomics programme, BDGP, will come in. There is no reason we cannot do this if we are committed to doing it. Tracing a dog from a sample is doable. It is also possible to do it for horses. We must make this foolproof. The day is gone of a dog running around without a microchip and people not knowing whose dog it is, as there is too much at risk for the farmer. We need to be firm about this. We can make all the excuses in the world that we cannot do something but there is one thing we can do. It might cost a few quid. I have talked to laboratories about it and it is workable to do it and put it up on a database. If we can get forensics from other things, we should be able to get forensics from the sheep.