Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

With regard to sending material to Northern Ireland, ten knackeries have been approved by the Department and, to date, six licences have issued to companies in the North. Some product has been transported to Northern Ireland for rendering. I also understand that another knackery intends to start sending material to Northern Ireland shortly. Applications that were submitted by enterprises to the Department were processed and turned around very quickly. I can assure the Deputy that if any bona fide operator seeks a licence, there will be no delay in issuing such a licence once all the criteria are met. We will make sure of that.

The other point concerned testing. We are still subsidising the collection, segregation and preparation for sampling adult bovine animals - those are fallen animals over 48 months of age - and the preparation for sampling of certain categories of sheep and goats. We have provided for that in this year's Estimate. In dealing with this matter, we will be reducing costs in all respects. As regards our surveillance programme with the EU, we will ensure that every aspect of the collection of fallen animals over 48 months will meet with all the conditions we applied in the past as well.

Another important issue concerns meat and bonemeal. Together with my ministerial colleagues, Deputy John Gormley and Deputy Eamon Ryan, I have been engaging with relevant plants to ensure they will take up the opportunity of meat and bonemeal for the production of energy. It is ridiculous that over the years we exported such product to places like Germany. We want to see greater momentum given to that enterprise in this country.

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