Mr. Tomás Bourke:

I thank Deputy Carthy for the question. I suppose we go back to go forward here. Members will be acutely aware of our position on the original TB forum that was established because it is important we make a distinction here.

There was a TB forum established a number of years ago that effectively provided one opportunity for one representative from each farm organisation to have an input along with all stakeholders. Despite only two stakeholders contributing to the programme - one being the Department or the State and the other being farmers - we had multiple stakeholders that were deemed to have equal voice to farmers in discussing the TB programme. The approach in that group was that effectively we would be called together, lectured on what the Department felt should be done and three months later we would see a press release outlining changes to the TB programme. The original TB forum was in no way fit for purpose and we are on public record already in stating that.

However, the new TB strategy has addressed significantly many of the shortcomings in that. There is now a structure where the TB forum is effectively the overall body that oversees the work of the sub-committees. Part of our submissions to amendments to the original TB forum was to ensure that those impacted by the decisions that were to be taken would be actively involved in the discussions and the decision-making on how they would be practically implemented at farm level.

The new TB forum, that has grown, I suppose, or has been set out in the strategy that was launched last year, has sub-groups. The implementation working group is one of those. The critical issue there is that the TB forum deals with high-level principle ideas, suggestions and proposals but the work of the implementation working group is to take that down to what would this look like at farm level, how would this work on farms, what impact it would have on farms and whether it is practical to even implement it based on what the costs associated would be.

The financial working group allows for detailed discussions around the appropriate levels of financial support for farmers, such as amendments to the live valuation scheme and targeting of income loss supports. The scientific working group is the forward-looking group. We have a technical group dealing with the more technical aspects of live valuation and various schemes to avoid these getting all hung up in one big round table.

To answer Deputy Carthy's question, we believe the strategy provides the basis for us to progress the TB programme, but the success of the IFA, the groups and the forum will be measured by taking the appropriate decisions and having them implemented at farm level. One of the frustrations coming through at this point is that some significant decisions have been taken. For example, decisions were taken to enhance the wildlife control programme and funding has been provided to implement those enhancements, but we have not seen that happen on the ground. We have not seen-----