Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Is there evidence that if this goes into animals, it does the damage from a veterinary perspective? Mr. Walshe was involved in the IFA at the time. Has anyone looked at a legal case if they had veterinarians backing them up and the likes of the EPA reports? Did anyone ever look at taking them on? I know a farmer never wants to go to court. I understand that because of the fear surrounding money, but was anything like that ever looked at?

I will make one proposal. Mr. Brennan probably will not do it but I think there is only one way to go on this. There must be a new inquiry into it. Mr. Brennan has lost faith in the system because he has been kicked around by it. He has been told he is the greatest fellow ever everywhere he has gone and that what happened to him was wrong, but that does not put money in his pocket for what he has lost down through the years. If good faith was shown by the Department, it would let this committee appoint an investigator with scientific and veterinary knowledge to go through every bit of it.

I have made inquiries and while the company is closed, it is not gone. There is still a bit of life there yet. I am not going to stay talking all night but this is horrendous. I will put that to the committee, or we will talk about it later, but someone somewhere must take this by the scruff of the neck. I am not a scientist or a vet but we are farmers and we know that if there is something wrong, there is something wrong. You do not have to go to TCD to know that if an animal is losing weight in one place and puts on weight when brought somewhere else, there is something wrong fairly close to you. The eave gutters on Mr. Brennan's farm were checked but were the gutters on buildings ten or 12 m away? Was there any evidence of the same contamination there when swabs were taken? I am not going to talk all night but there is no good in our making promises. Mr. Brennan is sick of that. He is sick of going places. He has travelled to Brussels. It was not the right place because this happened in this country, on the Department's, the EPA's and the local authority's watch.