Mr. Mike Magan:

I was gratified by the comments from the members in supporting where we have got to and equally being frustrated with the lack of complete progress on BVD. As Mr. O'Flaherty has explained, there are reasons for this. Naively, we expected farmers to do the right thing and get rid of a persistently infected animal but human nature is strange and complex and people do things for a variety of reasons. I have no doubt that we will complete the job. On the point of vaccinations, farmers spend a lot of money on vaccinations every year and we would like to think that success in a programme like BVD will ultimately mean that vaccination against it will not be necessary and will be one of those that we will be able to drop.

On the general point of vaccinations, and one of the members referred to salmonella, co-ordination around vaccinations is a prudent thing for which to aim ultimately. Over time, it would be good if we could get national coordination on what is happening on vaccinations, who is vaccinating and when. IBR will, for example, more than likely be the subject of a vaccination programme. This IBR programme, as already pointed out, will be crucial to the success of Ireland's continued export of, for example, quality weanlings from the west of Ireland and Dairygold calves from the south of Ireland. These are areas where we just cannot leave ourselves disadvantaged. Vaccinations are crucial at one level but equally, if we are successful in some areas, we can hopefully drop off some of them and yet use them sensible as a tool for eradication in other cases. It needs to be coordinated and we would like to look to a committee such as this for support in and around some of those programmes in the future, because we have enormous challenges ahead in herd health and when we work together we can do so much more. A committee such as this, with the power that it has, would be very helpful to us and we would love to talk further, perhaps with the chairman, as to how we could harness that collective power.