Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

That is why I mentioned the letter from one of my predecessors to the CSSO, which was around the time of these cases. I think it preceded them slightly. We had a genuine worry about our animal identification and movement systems being circumvented. We acted on this. We wrote to the CSSO and said we would move to prosecutions in the area and we alerted the CSSO to the need for legal support for this. The Deputy is right. We identified there was a significant problem in the area and we had to move to solve it. Much of this subsequently centred on the activities of one company and people and farmers associated with it. Successful prosecutions were brought against the company and a range of farmers.