Mr. Michael Sheahan:

I will answer some of the questions myself but will pass one or two of them on to my colleague, Mr. Breslin and others to my colleagues Ms Greene and Mr. Ryan. If I miss any questions, I ask the Chairman to draw my attention to it. One of the questions asked was about live exports and the countries to which we send live animals. This is always of concern to us. Members will be aware that we export approximately 200,000 live cattle every year, of which approximately 100,000 are calves, most of which go to Spain and the Netherlands. Not too long ago the Netherlands had a significant outbreak of TB in calves they had imported from the UK. As a result, they imposed an effective ban on the importation of calves from the UK. While we always are fearful that TB would be discovered in calves we have exported to Holland, thankfully that has not happened in recent years and there are several reasons for that. Obviously, TB in calves is a rare occurrence. The calves that we export to the Netherlands, and to Spain to a lesser extent, are for the veal trade so the animals are slaughtered at a very young age. Typically, we have not had issues with TB in any of our calf exports in recent years. Similarly, the bulk of the rest of our live exports to Turkey, our weanling exports to Italy and Spain and so on, are animals for immediate slaughter or for going into feedlots and for slaughter within a couple months. Simply from an age point of view, they are not the type of animals that develop TB. They are slaughtered within a few months of arriving in Italy and while I am not criticising the Italian system, they do not have the same post mortem regime in place as we do. Effectively, because they do not really have a significant TB problem, they do not have vets on the line slicing glands to look for TB like we do. For better or for worse, we do not tend to get TB-related issues being notified to us from other countries, partly because they are not looking and partly because the animals are being slaughtered at a very young age, before they have had a chance to develop TB anyway.

Again, in the case of weanlings, they are being slaughtered at a relatively young age. The country to which we export older cattle, including breeding heifers and dairy stock, is the UK. As the Senator knows, if we export to somewhere like Scotland, which is free of TB, post-import testing will be carried out on Irish cattle. Over the years we have had a number of notifications from the UK regarding animals exported from Ireland, which subsequently developed TB. We follow up on all of those. With regard to the UK, TB in live exports is a bit of an issue. By and large, it has not been an issue in the other countries that make up the larger markets to which we send cattle for slaughter or for the veal trade. That covers live exports.

The Senator made the point, which I agree with, that there is still confusion out there. From our communications with both farmers and vets there is certainly still confusion about the precise value of the blood test, what it is about, when it should be done, and so on. That is something on which we are working. We have a communications strategy lined up. For example, we will produce short YouTube videos that we can send to farmers on their phones to explain these issues. An example might be a simple two-minute video about a farmer who had three reactors among his animals, none of whom had lesions when they went to the factory, wondering whether that means they do not have TB. Of course it does not mean that, but we want to explain what the blood test is about. We have plans for a series of short, two-minute videos to explain ten common issues that cause confusion among farmers and vets in respect of TB. I agree that we have a job of work to do. We are working on that and on improving our communications in respect of all aspects of the TB programme, because there is a bit of confusion out there about certain aspects of it.

Going back to the point about putting notices on the boards in marts, we have probably dealt with that issue. That is one of the issues being discussed at the TB forum. There are two sides to the coin. There are pros and cons. Making the information available is good for somebody who wants to buy and keep his or her risk low, but it is not good from the point of view of somebody who has had a problem in his or her herd. Senator Mulherin asked what the hard decisions were. That is one of the key difficult decisions the forum is grappling with.

From a science point of view, if we had risk-based trading, meaning that information on the risk status of the herd from which they were buying was available to a person buying cattle, it would lead us to eradication quickly. That is the policy which is now being pursued in many other countries that still have TB problems. In New Zealand, for example, risk-based trading is now the norm. Every herd is categorised. There is a simple categorisation system. Everybody knows his or her category and nobody buys cattle without knowing the risk category of the herd from which they are buying. If one is in the highest risk category, one is only allowed to sell animals to others in that category. One is not allowed to sell animals to somebody who is in a low-risk category.