Mary White (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)

I wish to raise this matter to find out more definitively what replacement methods are proposed for the culling of badgers with more effective and humane methods of control, as set out in the revised programme for Government. My concern is that the current method of control, a stopped-restraint, is a euphemism for an ugly snare which can have the effect of causing intense suffering to the badger. This decade alone has seen more than 50,000 badgers snared or removed by trapping. My understanding is that a vaccine is being developed. However, until the delivery of that vaccine thousands more badgers will suffer horribly in this manner.

My area in south Carlow is one of the chosen areas where a licence has been issued to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food under Part 3(d) of the Wildlife Act 1976, Approved Traps and Snares Regulations 2003, which stipulates that a stopped body restraint must be used when capturing badgers. I understand also that 30 such licences were issued in 2008. What will happen in the meantime before the vaccine comes on stream? Will the Department continue to use this brutal form of snaring? If every badger in the country were wiped out I do not believe tuberculosis would be stopped. Although the badger is seen as one vector, or carrier, for TB, mycobacterium bovis, other animals such as deer, dogs or cats may also be carriers. We must eradicate TB, not the badger, and must find ways of doing this.

An answer to a parliamentary question revealed the total cost of the eradication programme for the 11 years from 1997 to 2007 to be approximately €414.47 million. That staggering figure excludes administration costs, travel and subsistence. When one adds in those costs, based on a figure for 2006 of €33.8 million and multiplies that by 11 one gets a further €371.8 million. The total approximate spend in eradicating TB over 11 years is €786.27 million.

My point is that we have had these extraordinary costs, coupled with the cost of taking out the badger at a cost of €12.79 million, and still have not controlled bovine TB. In the meantime, a gentle unobtrusive nocturnal mammal is being wiped out. We are the only country to allow such methods at present. I would support caged trapping to be used as a more humane method of control until the vaccine comes onstream.

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