Professor Simon More:

I hope I will be able to answer every question but if I do not, please let me know. I thank Deputy Cahill for his questions. I preface my responses to all these questions in terms of what I see my role as. It is not just my role but it is the role of scientists, and we are trying to give our best understanding of the position. I suggest my role is much easier than my policy colleagues, as that is what members of the committee would do. We are just trying to clarify the facts. I want to be very clear that I am not trying to suggest that the situation is hopeless. Based on all the evidence I have put together and much work by much people, if we are to realistically shift towards eradication, we need to do much more. We must be very focused for all the reasons I outlined.

To reply to Deputies Cahill and Kenny on the accuracy of the test, the tests being used here are really no different from those being used elsewhere. The tools we use here are the tools available. It is important to remember that the gamma test was invented in Australia at the very end of that country's programme but it never really used it. However, it has been very helpful to us subsequently. These are imperfect tests. I will give an example, which I gave recently in a Johne's disease implementation group, IG, because we have the same problem there with tests, mainly of men. If we get a prostate test done, we know that when we come out of that the result may be negative but that does not mean that we definitely do not have it. It could be early. There could be many reasons. There are also big problems of false positives with the blood test used for prostate. We are using these imperfect tests and TB is no different. Mention was made previously of false positives and false negatives. There are not many false positives but there are these false negatives. Fundamentally, what we are trying to do is find a way forward despite the imperfect tests. That is why, for example, we know that the skin test does not pick up all of the infection, and it is not very good at early infection. The gamma test was introduced because it is much better at doing that, although it throws up false positives.

To be honest, the problem we face with TB is no different from most animal health or indeed human health issues where we are trying to do the best we can with tests that are imperfect. That is the reason different countries have used this concept of risk-based trading, and I will come back to Deputy Penrose's issue in a moment, to provide some more detail. Are there better tests or better weapons? The answer is "No". I do not believe we will get a better diagnostic test. There is none that I am aware of on the horizon. No test will ever be 100% effective. It would be very rare for a test to be that effective. We are, therefore, trying to use the other models to help us.

Deputy Cahill spoke about the model of cost sharing and the fact that farmers pay 50%. I do not dispute that. What concerns me is that the methodology of cost sharing we use here creates resentment inasmuch as farmers, quite reasonably, do not want to pay that and they have no real say in where this programme is going. The percentage is important, and I have given some detail on that in the paper. If I could use the New Zealand story as an example where an agreement was made about the percentage that would be covered. There would be an envelope around all of the programme costs and industry will pay, say, 50%. It is a little bit more; I think it is 56%. It does not really matter. However, in terms of every decision made, 50% of the input comes from farmers. If they have a good year and the costs go down, the cost to farmers goes down too. If they seriously need to ramp things up, the cost to farmers goes up. Farmers are absolutely central to the entire process of decision making. They know it is within their grasp that they can eradicate so they are willing to do that, whereas here it is fair to say there is no connect. It is a point of huge resentment but farmers have no say. It does not matter whether things are good, bad or indifferent, they will be charged the same amount. That is the issue.

In terms of the question as to why deer in Wicklow are different, I am not sure I can answer that. We work with biological systems and it is not always entirely clear. However, based on international experience, we know that as we aggregate species and get increasing contact between deer and between deer and infected species and as we increase densities, those things are drivers for shifting from a spillover to a maintenance host. We are working on first principles. The fact that 16% are infected does not necessarily mean that they are driving the problem. We do not know if that is the case.

Deputy Kenny noted that it took 20 years to clarify the role of badgers in TB. The way it worked was that infection was found in badgers but that means absolutely nothing until we clarify the role badgers are playing. Two large and very fine studies were done in the past 20 years, from the late 1980s. In east Offaly and then the four-area project, badgers were removed from swathes of the country. Essentially, they were comparing cattle plus badgers versus cattle only and they found that the level of TB fell significantly in areas of cattle only, indicating that the only explanation was that badgers were very much driving the problem.

With deer it is more difficult. While it may be possible to remove all deer, it would be hugely resource intensive to do so. We have an opportunity to use a completely different methodology now that has only emerged in the past couple of years, namely, whole genome sequencing. That helps us to understand directionality and while it has only just been introduced, this methodology will help us. I do not know whether it will help us to clarify quickly the epidemiological role of deer. Ireland could benefit from discussion with colleagues in the United States in particular, who have sought to clarify the role of deer in their cities. One of the beauties of science is that we work internationally all the time so we know those folks. They were very helpful to me in developing this paper.

On the issue of extra controls, the sole context in which I am saying this is based on lessons from the bovine viral diarrhoea, BVD, story on the graph. It is important for us to be realistic. It would be wrong of me to say that what we are doing is fine when I do not believe that is the case. It is absolutely fine for control. However, in terms of eradicating the disease, to reply to Deputy Penrose, we are close to a ratio of one post the badger vaccination. That is over the whole of the country and not just defined areas. The aim is to vaccinate over the whole of the country. This modelling is based on a coverage of 40%, so 40% of badgers would be immune at any point in time. If we could drive that coverage higher, that would drive this value lower. However, we thought 40% was probably realistic given that badgers are being born all the time and they need to be vaccinated, etc.

Regarding brucellosis, I appreciate Deputy Cahill's comment that the test was much more accurate. We had another great tool whereby if we got the brucellosis diagnosis wrong, we found out very quickly. We do not have that with TB. It could sit there. I was involved in the final cases of TB in Australia and it was at that point that we could disentangle everything that was happening. Currently in Ireland, everything is happening simultaneously and it is very difficult to disentangle what is going on. However, in Australia, with the very final cases it was possible to show the importance of residual infection. One of the final cases was what we call in Australia a clearance sale, which is a farm shutting down. They distributed to 40 farms over two states and one could trace all of those cattle. One could not do that here because there is so much happening in terms of TB.

Deputy Penrose asked if it is possible to eradicate TB. There are international examples of success. The story in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and other European countries, which I will come to in a moment, is that it is all different. The problems in Australia were mainly with respect to cattle control. They had two wildlife species that worried them. One was feral buffalo, which were a maintenance host. However, feral buffalo lived in a different area from feral cattle. Nonetheless, they eradicated TB from feral buffalo by eradicating feral buffalo.

The other one was feral pigs. There are 26 million feral pigs in Australia, a little more than the number of people, and TB was being found in feral pigs, which are just like wild boar here.

They quickly realised that feral pigs were eating infected cattle carcasses. However, once those carcasses were dealt with under the programme, there was no maintenance of infection in feral pigs. If there had been such maintenance, I do not think TB would have been eradicated. In New Zealand, it is completely different. It has almost eradicated TB from cattle but large areas of the country have very high population densities of brush-tailed possums, a feral Australian species. Authorities in New Zealand are moving from trying to eradicate TB in cattle to trying to eradicate it in possums.

Deputy Martin Kenny asked about the experience in various European countries. I appreciate the examples, which are important. TB is re-emerging in Spain, France and Germany having been present at very low levels. It is becoming increasingly problematic in Spain and particularly in France and is also beginning to re-emerge in the Alps in the very south of Germany. It is primarily present in badgers and possibly deer in France, in deer in Germany, and in wild boar and various species of deer in Spain, although I suspect there is also cattle involvement in the latter country. I know from our Spanish colleagues that the issue of cattle controls has become increasingly important there.

Deputy Martin Kenny's question on closed systems highlights a very reasonable concern, namely, whether a risk is posed to, for example, large feedlots from neighbouring herds. A study by one of my colleagues, Mr. Jamie Madden, who is present in the Visitors Gallery, is beginning to address that issue. That highlights that we work very closely with our policy colleagues to provide the science to help support policy decision making. This issue has been identified as a concern and we will now seek to determine whether a risk is posed.

The Deputy asked for how long restrictions should be in place. Ten years sounds like a long period for restrictions. I am not sure I have a direct answer to the question. The fundamental problem is that we need to be able to cope with trade while also coping with TB eradication. Under risk-based trading as employed in Australia, it took eight years to get from the point of de-restriction to when a herd could be freely traded. In the interim period, the cattle could be traded with many different herds, but that had to be very carefully done. However, it might not be an appropriate system for Ireland.

Deputy Penrose asked how risk-based trading works. In Australia, there were two layers of risk-based trading. One layer was a state-based system. It only took a few years to eradicate TB from the south of Australia. Tasmania had a risk status, then Victoria, then South Australia and so on. There was an area-based status. One could not sell cattle from a herd in a high-risk state to a farmer in a less risky state. There was state-based direction of movement. There was also movement within states. If one had been released from restriction four years previously and was, therefore, medium risk, one could buy from herds of equivalent or lower risk and sell to herds of equivalent or higher risk. That was to ensure that any trade in stock did not set back the programme.