Mr. Eddie Punch:

Senator Daly made a very pertinent point about the definition of insanity. A genuine effort is being made at this stage. There were, of course, staffing issues and staff changes, but life is life and people will move on, no matter what we do. The bigger issue is what happens if this does not work, and there should be some space for thinking about that. If, in 2030, we are still at the same spot we were at in 2020, what are we going to do then? That is not a popular thing to say but I think there should be some space where people are looking at this question of what we are trying to achieve.

There is a lot of talk. The Committee of Public Accounts is concerned about €1 billion being spent on this within a ten-year period. If €1 billion is spent on it and we get to where we want to go, that is great. However, I take the view that unless we can find an effective way of dealing with the deer, we may not succeed. There has been a burying of heads in the sand, certainly at the outset of this forum, about the TB role of deer. If we cannot find a way to control that, we will have to start thinking about what we will do in ten years' time.

Covid was interesting. Two years ago, we said we could have zero Covid, then we said we could have zero Covid with vaccination, and now we have moved the goalposts in terms of how we deal with Covid. I think we may eventually arrive at a scenario where we ask how do we make sure we have our live exports and what is the way of dealing with them, and then, for the rest of the herd, what is the purpose of all of this testing. That is something that someone should be reflecting on. However, we should certainly try to achieve all we can in the forum, as we are doing at the moment.