Dr. David Meredith:

Senator Collins made the point about improving accessibility to services or training, and that is really at the heart of a lot of what we are trying to do in terms of going to where the farmer is. It is about not putting any barriers or burdens in the way in addition to everything else farmers are trying to get on with.

Senator Brady mentioned the TB helpline.

I cannot respond directly to it, but what I can say is that I and a number of colleagues within Teagasc have been working on looking at the human impact of TB. We are focusing in on how the inspection process works and the stresses that can bring into it. We are trying to identify ways of improving the communication skills of the various different people involved in that in order to provide farmers with the right knowledge at the right time and to take some of the uncertainty and stress out of this. We have an ongoing project in that area called COM TB, which is funded by the Department of agriculture, and we will have finished that up by the end of the year.