Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food
Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine
2:00 am
William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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The Cathaoirleach was being flexible earlier on. I will be as quick as I can. Someone else says I have two minutes.
TB is the most pressing thing in the mind of every one of my farming colleagues at the moment. Every farmer out there is terrified of a TB test. I went years and years and we never had that at home. One would be afraid of it, but it was more the nuisance of having to get the cattle to have a bath and all of that. People talk about the mental strain on farmers, but this is it. I am telling the Minister that this is it. There was never, ever such an outbreak of TB. I say this to the officials. It has all gone wrong. It is like a runaway train. There is the mental strain for farmers of having 60 cows go down and not being allowed an independent blood test. The Minister will have to roll out something. He is going to have to help farmers and he is going to have to put their minds at ease. More importantly,-----