Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)

While trying to bring people with us and minimise the impact on farmers, who are already extremely stressed, I have to ensure that we have a science-based approach and that what we do is backed up by science. There are three very clear causes of the spread of bovine TB: cattle-to-cattle transmission, residual transmission and wildlife. If we do not have a suite of measures that, when layered over one another, give us a level of cover that addresses all three of those areas, we will fail. That involves difficult decisions for all of us. It also involves a change of practice in how my Department operates, in how testing operates, in how we deal with herds and in what is identified as a high-risk herd because what we have been doing has not worked and has left gaps. That is because we do not have 100% foolproof testing. The skin test has 80% efficacy. I want to introduce a lot more blood testing in high-risk categories. The efficacy rate of such testing is over 90%. Ultimately, there is more TB left in herds that we have to identify. We have to identify it early and get it out rather than waiting and finding it later on because that is where the disease is seeding. There is a range of measures we can take to address that.

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