Paul Daly (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome Mr. Gleeson and the officials here this evening. Regarding the issue on which Senator Boyhan finished, we had a meeting about it last week. I do not have anything to add to or subtract from what I said last week. It is all out in the public domain. This evening is about the statement of strategy. I condone a lot of what Senator Boyhan said but I will not rehash last week’s meeting except to say that in the animal welfare section, the issues relating to horses have received a lot of attention, but there are also issues with dogs. The big issue with dog control and dog problems is that it is cross departmental. We need a strategy. I know a lot of work has been done and the Departments have come together. We have problems in the agriculture sector in particular with sheep-worrying but there is an even more worrying problem among the public with the number of attacks and unmicrochipped, uncared for or uncontrolled dogs. Ultimately, in my experience at least, it ends up back on my desk because I am the spokesperson on agriculture. I have no doubt that it ends up back with the Department as well. That is one strategy that should not be overlooked this evening because we seem to have gone down the horse direction for obvious reasons. That is just in passing.

I know this is a sort of a mid-term review because of the change of Taoiseach. It is a review of the strategy for 2023 and we are into 2024 now so we are more than half way. In his opening statement, Mr. Gleeson made the point that it is “to provide the optimum policy framework for the development of the agrifood sector”. I have a couple of very broad questions on that. Any time I have done a strategy or plan in the private sector or elsewhere, the first step is to review the one that was there before to see how we stood on particular issues and if we needed to cross any t's, dot any i's or change the direction we were going. I will throw some headings at Mr. Gleeson and ask him to comment. Forestry has been well covered so I will not go there again. TB is an issue on which I would like to hear where we are going. There are problems in every sector of agriculture but the big one that is coming to me most, along with forestry but that has had plenty of airtime this evening, is TB. I would like Mr. Gleeson to comment on the Department’s policy going to Europe with a view to an extension of the derogation or a new derogation and the role it is playing in getting some groundwork done before D-day on that one. It has to be a part of any Department of agriculture policy or strategy. I would like Mr. Gleeson’s comments on TB, the derogation and also animal welfare, to an extent.

We had meetings here about live export issues and what seems to be coming down the tracks from Europe. What is the Department’s strategy around influencing any restrictions on live exports, particularly calf exports, given that we are an island nation and that we should always have the same access to the Common Market as everyone else. Lest I be quoted otherwise, that should be have tight animal welfare regimes. I am pro animal welfare but we are an island nation and that should be part of the Department’s strategy.

Finally, to save myself coming back in, this is a simple thing but it drives me mad and it probably drives others mad too because it is being raised with me. Deputy Fitzmaurice talked earlier about paperwork and red tape and frustrations about that. It is not always a big job to sort out some of the things that frustrate farmers. One is the genomic-type buttons and tags for the SCEP arriving three days after the cattle go out after the cattle have been in for maybe seven months. It must be easy to put this into a strategy. The scheme sections and the ICBF could sit down together on this. The way the world has gone, cattle are in for six or seven months. Surely to God, we can do this joined-up thinking. It is cost neutral. It would alleviate a hell of a lot of frustration for farmers if they could get those buttons or tags during the six months the cattle are in the shed. It nearly always seems to be three days after letting them out that the tags are received. That change would not cost anyone anything. It is just a bit of joined-up thinking. It is a small change that would avoid a lot of frustration for a lot of farmers with everything else that is going on. These yokes arrive in the post the week after you let the cattle out having been looking at them in a shed for six months.