Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 4 October 2018

Public Accounts Committee

Teagasc Financial Statements 2017

9:00 am

Professor Gerry Boyle:

Yes. It is designed to be a top-class dairy farm, based on minimising investment and production costs.

Along with the other partners, we have commissioned a review which is not yet complete. It would be inappropriate for me to get into what is at this point a draft review, but I note that the episodes that occurred were primarily due to the storm event. It was an extraordinary event in terms of the build-up of snow and drifts over a very short period. Even though the farm had taken preventative measures, they clearly were not sufficient. In the wider context of overall animal health and mortality statistics on the farm, the episodes, while utterly regrettable, are not significant. The overall health status of the animals and the mortality-----