Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their opening statement and the discussion in respect of the situation with TB eradication. It is something farmers across the country have had a somewhat jaundiced view of, in some cases. A lot of money has been spent on it and it is not really delivering. We can all say that pretty truthfully. We had the Minister in here yesterday and I raised this with him in the context of the budget that goes to TB eradication every year. I said that if a portion of that budget could have been put towards research into a vaccination programme ten, 15 or 20 years ago, we would be in a better place now. I want to tease that out a little with the witnesses.

I appreciate the discussion we have had up to now. I am aware of some of the work that has been done by various companies and laboratories on this. I would like to ask about a situation where a vaccination was developed and was given to calves when they are born. This is one of the things I want to find out. If a cow has TB and a calf is born, does the TB carry through to the calf? If we had a vaccination programme and we started with the calves, how quickly do the witnesses think we would be in a situation where we would have the herd vaccinated across the State? Is it possible to put some kind of marker in? I get the point that the test for an infected animal and a vaccinated animal will produce the same result as things stand. Could a marker be put in to distinguish between vaccinated and infected animals?