Mr. Ray Doyle:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for listening to our presentation on bovine EID. One could ask why this country, in particular, needs a bovine EID programme to account for cattle movements. One could also ask why the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society, ICOS, which represents the marts is making this presentation on the reasons it would be in the national interest to have a bovine EID programme. We have a national herd of 6.14 million. Our nearest trading partner, the United Kingdom, has a similar herd profile. We have a large number of animals. As a result, Ireland is the fourth largest beef exporter in the world. Members have heard us make presentations previously and will be aware that we export almost 90% of the beef we produce. It is vitally important for us, therefore, from the point of view of beef exports, to have a traceability system to ensure all of our meat can be traced back to where the animals were born. That is what we have with the Department's animal identification and movement, AIM, system.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has one of the best in class traceability systems in Europe, if not the world. To get the full benefit from that we believe bovine EID is the best add-on to enhance it. Every year, 1.7 million animals are traded through livestock marts, 1.6 million are slaughtered in meat plants and almost 1 million are traded privately. There are a significant number of animals moving around in Ireland on any given day, week or year. Cattle movements in Ireland are much higher than anywhere else in Europe. In Europe, cattle tend not to move. If they do, they tend to move once, perhaps to a feed lot. In Ireland, we have a history going back hundreds of years of animals being produced, for example, in the south and east, migrating to the west and ending up in the midlands for finishing before slaughter. That level of movement is much higher than that of our continental neighbours.

The AIM system developed by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is the best in Europe for tracking these movements. Bovine EID could not work without the AIM system. If one was to try to introduce bovine EID in some of our neighbours, for example in the UK, it could not be done in the way that we are proposing today because it needs the type of database and level of checks contained in the Department's AIM system. To put it in context, there are approximately 4 million animal movements in Ireland annually. In Europe, 5 million cattle cross borders every year for exporting - that is 5 million just moving across borders. There are also internal movements so that figure could be multiplied by two to get the total movement of animals. This is vital for us because live exports are something that Ireland needs to enhance and have every year to keep beef processors honest in that regard. That illustrates that cattle movement is not unique to Ireland and is very important for Europe.

Bovine EID is a radio frequency identification technology. It is not new technology. It is used extensively in the identification of dogs and sheep and is required in all breeding sheep born since 1 January 2010. That is now the case in Ireland. Sheep EID is in place but for a very limited number because only breeding sheep have EIDs. The rest of the sheep flock does not. Perhaps it is a missed opportunity that sheep EID has not been implemented in full. That is for another day. That has been in place since 1 January 2010.

EID is required in all dogs born since 1 June 2015. From 31 March 2016, all dogs must have an EID system in place. It is not a new technology or a new idea. It is in place for sheep and dogs and we believe that it has a place for bovines. It is currently used in Ireland on a voluntary basis. Some larger dairy units have adopted EID on a voluntary basis because it is used in the management of feeders, yield monitors and robotic milkers.

All types of bovine EID, and EID in general, have a unique code embedded into transponders. These transponders can be bolus type, subcutaneous vials, as in dog identification, or a tag or button-based, standard, readable tags, which is what we propose for the bovine EID. These transponders can be low frequency or ultra high frequency. Low frequency is a tried and tested old technology and is preferred by the commission because it is an old technology. It was there when the original legislation, which gave rise to EID, was written back in the early 2000s. This low frequency is ideal for close range single readings but for a livestock mart or even a busy processing plant, because of the speed at which one needs to read these tags, we contend that UHF is better because it offers increased range and larger data storage possibilities. Not only is it able to identify the code more quickly and easily, there is also much bigger data storage available for people to record antiemetics or prescription medicines, for example. These can all be stored on the tags.

There is an obvious health and safety risk to farmers, mart and meat factory staff. Currently, we have to physically read tags on animals. These tags can often be covered by muck and filth and have to be cleaned and read. Farmers or mart and meat factory staff have to lean in over the animal to try to read them. There is an obvious health and safety risk there. If bovine EID is in place, one can simply have a race reader over the animals and all animals will be read instantly from several meters away with no health and safety risk to anybody.

Cattle-related deaths in Ireland account for almost 12% of all farm fatalities so I do not lightly say that it is a health and safety concern for all. Increased speed of cattle movement data would be a positive advantage from bovine EID because with EID we can have real-time movement data. If a farmer decided to sell an animal through a mart it could be instantly read on intake into the mart and the AIM database would be instantly updated, rather than at the end of the sale day as is currently the case.

There would also be increased accuracy. Currently we rely on a visual inspection of tags but the primary cause of amendments to be made by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for mistakes is the misreading of tags. People have to read a tag and correlate it with a blue passport in the database. Human error exists, people can make mistakes and it is only the last four digits that are highly visible to the operative, whether that is the mart operative, a factory operative or the farmer him- or herself. If bovine EID was in place mistakes could not happen because the EID tags are either read or they are not. There is a 1% failure rate but a failure in this context means it cannot be read. The physical number of the tag is then inputted into the AIM system, giving as close as one can get to 100% readability. A tag will not read incorrectly and this will represent greatly enhanced accuracy.

The number of inputs required by human errors is greatly reduced. Cattle theft possibility is also greatly reduced. Given that each individual EID is a unique code one cannot tamper with them or create a different code. A bolus or a subcutaneous vial would almost eliminate cattle rustling in its current form. This would make paperless traceability available to the entire food chain. If we had bovine EID in place we would have the possibility that we would no longer require passports, which are a cumbersome and old-school traceability system. Passports cause their own problems because while mart managers are content, farmers sell passports, not animals. They could arrive with an incorrect passport, or the correct passport but with an incorrectly input tag number so the possibility of errors is doubled by having passports and animals in separate transactions. With bovine EID we do not require a passport and EU legislation allows for this because an animal's passport is its EID tag. The physical issuing of passports costs the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine several million euro per year so it would give rise to an instant saving.

Feeding systems, fertility, health and welfare monitoring are all possible with EID and EID on cattle would make them more attractive to some potential buyers, both at home and abroad. The major purchasers of our live exports are big feed lots, whether they be in Spain, the Netherlands or Italy, and they have embraced EID technology. If it was a mandatory system Irish cattle would be even more attractive as a result.

Food chain information can be integrated on EID tags. Currently, farmers must sign a food chain information declaration when they present animals for slaughter to make sure they do not have any residues of anthelmintics or antibiotics. With the EID tag, and especially the UHF technology, one can update the tag and the food chain information as one administers these drugs to the animals and this remains for everybody at the end of the food chain to see.

Scotland has field-tested dual EID tags which are tested encompassing LF, the technology currently approved of by the Commission, and UHF, the new technology. Both technologies can easily be put into the same tag. The farmer out west with a handful of cattle will have a tag which looks exactly the same as the tags today but embedded in it will be the LF and EUF chips. The Scots have estimated the cost at approximately €1 per tag. They also predict that costs can only come down further because if Ireland embraced this and issued 2.2 million tags every year, the cost of implementing both technologies into the chip would be less than €1 per tag.

If we take it that the average animal being presented for slaughter, or a high quality weanling for live export, is well in excess of €1,000, €1 per animal is not a significant cost for the advantages to us that I have outlined.

In 2013, the Scots spent a significant amount of money on the EID project. In 2013, Dingwall mart show-cased the advantages of EID in terms of farmers marts and processors. In 2013, ICOS brought over the Scottish team and demonstrated the obvious benefits to bovine EID in Enniscorthy, Roscommon and Fermoy.

No European country has yet adopted EID as a compulsory measure; it is voluntary for any member state to do so. Australia and New Zealand, however, have adopted it in a full mandatory manner and their method of implementation is very user-friendly. Every animal is EID tagged once it leaves the holding. In principle, we could have the same situation here if we EID tagged every calf born on X date and then implemented a process whereby once the animal moves, it has to be upgraded to EID. One would have full implementation with lower costs because the initial cost would be held just over the approximately 2 million tags issued every year. Australia and New Zealand have adopted the EID model in full and they have increased animal welfare, animal health and safety and traceability as a result.

Scotland is planning a three year trial for the complete supply chain to demonstrate the benefits of EID. It is hoped that will start early in 2016.

The European Commission approved the bovine EID regulation in 2014 which allowed it to be voluntarily adopted at member state level but that legislation stated that EID capturing and an agreed tagging system must be in place by 2019. It is for the member states to take care of that in terms of legislation but it is available to any member state to adopt EID voluntarily. The reason we are here today is that we believe member states should voluntarily adopt it for their national herd and we contend that it would be to our benefit to do so.