Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 11 July 2024
Public Accounts Committee
2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine
9:30 am
Mr. Brendan Gleeson:
We vaccinate badgers. Last year, we vaccinated about 9,000 badgers. It is a programme for Government commitment to increase the rate of vaccination. The badger is a protected species. We are now vaccinating more badgers than we are culling, so we have really advanced in that regard. I am not sure what the culling figures were last year. Particularly where there is a bad outbreak associated with the badger, we might still cull, but our preference is to vaccinate. The evidence we have is that it is no less effective than culling.