Mr. Michael Spellman:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for giving us the opportunity to make a presentation to them on bovine EID. We hope that at the end of the presentation, when members have had a chance to ask questions, they will have a good understanding of why we believe it is vitally important that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine give serious consideration to the introduction of a mandatory electronic identification programme for bovines. Mr. Doyle will take us through some slides that will give an overview of the issues that would impact on the implementation of such a system. We hope to answer as best we can the questions that will arise following the slide presentation. We will elaborate on the points raised as we proceed with the presentation.