Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Michael Cronin, the chair of the TB forum, and Mr. O'Mahony from the Department of agriculture. We have read their statements and have them in front of us. We have had time to tease them out. If Mr. Cronin will forgive me, I will concentrate on directing one or two key questions to Mr. O'Mahony from the Department. I suppose there were really only two key takeaways from his statement. I am concentrating on his statement rather than on suggestions, speculations, media commentary or other commentary about TB. In Mr. O'Mahony's opening statement, he states, this is interesting in itself:

The Minister recognis[ed] the economic and emotional burden of TB on farmers their families and the impact on the output of the agri-food sector with lost production at farm and processor level and our rural economy [and] accepted the need for urgent and decisive action.

This is to be welcomed because it has a major emotional impact on people, families, incomes and a whole range of other issues. It is important that this has been put on the public record now. Mr. O'Mahony is quoted as stating the Minister accepted the need for urgent and decisive action and we need to see timelines in this regard. I will leave this with Mr. O'Mahony.

The second point is the overall cost to the Exchequer. This is an interesting issue. The overall cost to the Exchequer of the TB programme, excluding staff costs, has increased from a full-year cost of €57 million in 2023 to over €100 million in 2024 and is on track to increase further in 2025. We know a lot of this increase has been driven by the cost of the compensation package, but these are figures that awaken us. Ultimately, however, compensation has to be compensation and there has to be an acknowledgement of everybody's responsibility. This is an important point to put on the record.

The only thing that really jumped off the page for me, to again quote from Mr. O'Mahony's statement placed before this committee, was "The new proposals once agreed set out how the Department and stakeholders will continue to engage on the issues impacting on TB levels in Ireland, which will involve some difficult choices." I have a simple question. Will Mr. O'Mahony please outline what he has in mind there? He clearly committed those words to paper. What is he thinking about in this regard or what are the Department's thoughts in relation to this statement? I refer to "some difficult choices" having to be made. Can he share the thinking with the committee?