Mr. Hugh Farrell:

I reiterate what the previous speaker has said but I want to add to that. We have no idea of the population of deer in the country. We always talk about Wicklow or very small areas. This is a problem in every county. Where I live, nearly on the Fermanagh-Cavan border, there is a transfer from North to South and it is affecting Cavan, Leitrim and into Donegal. What we are finding is that there are massive breakdowns in these areas. There is no follow-up. I go back there to where the Department took its eye of the ball, maybe back when the value of deer meat collapsed and privately farmed deer were just let roam. Out of that, the numbers grew and grew. Nobody had done anything about it.

Yesterday evening I was helping a farmer to fill in a form for a new entrant for a herd number. They asked what different types of farming he had, whether it was pigs, hens, cattle or whatever, but deer was mentioned on it. They have to be regulated on one's own farm. As with bovine, the Department is lacking in its responsibility of taking care of them, and reducing numbers. Whether it is through the OPW, the national parks service or the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, they need to come together, reduce the numbers and take responsibility for them because there is no point in us talking about risks of anything else in farming unless that is dealt with.