Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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There is considerable confusion at the moment. In 2015 a review of veterinary laboratories was carried out. Ongoing reviews are under way in Sligo, Athlone and other parts of the country. There is much disquiet and the relevant members of staff do not know what is happening.

The importance of these laboratories for farmers in the areas cannot be overestimated. Approximately 50% of the cattle in Ireland and 85% of the total sheep flock are based along the west coast from Donegal to Clare. This is of the utmost importance. The west has gone through a rough period over several years. It is good to see that employment figures have started to go up. We do not want to see a loss of services at this stage from Sligo, Athlone and such areas. They are of the utmost importance to the people in the area.

Tony McLoughlin (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle for taking this important item. I wish to highlight the real concerns and fears of the farming community in the entire north west over the potential closure of the regional laboratory in Sligo. I understand that during 2015 and 2016, a total of 3,140 animal post mortem examinations were carried out.

In recent weeks and months I have had several meetings with staff of the laboratory as well as farmers from my area and IFA representatives. I have listened to their concerns. It is clear the service is working well in County Sligo. The service is in a key location in the region and helps farmers from the north west. It covers Donegal, Cavan, Leitrim, Sligo, Mayo and Roscommon. I put it to the Minister of State that there is no need to fix something that is not broken. We have spoken about a long-term review. The laboratory and the staff are providing a vital service to the farming community in the region. I imagine the Minister of State can appreciate the need to put this issue to bed once and for all for everyone involved.

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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People could be forgiven for asking when the attack on rural Ireland is going to stop. I do not intend to have a political moan in the normal way about the issues, although I could do so.

The scientific concerns expressed by the Veterinary Officers Association of Ireland stand up to scrutiny. This laboratory is of strategic importance to the entire north west. It is of strategic importance to achieving the complete surveillance system envisaged by Food Harvest 2020. The veterinary officers association has said that our enviable animal health and food safety reputation will be put at risk and that this could have a severe impact on the many farmers throughout one third of the country. The association maintains the contingency plan for exotic disease control needs a response time of less than two hours. Reducing the number of laboratories with the closure of Sligo would seriously hamper the potential to meet this requirement. We have an issue with any proposed collection service. The Minister has indicated that it would be based on the Netherlands, which is a far smaller country with full-time intensive farmers rather than our part-time farmers. We have infrastructure that can facilitate those people. There will be issues with regard to cross-contamination in any collection service. There will be issues in terms of a helpline filtering out animals that deserve post mortem examination.

There could be zoonoses or other conditions which, if detected, could protect against a serious outbreak of disease. It defies logic from the scientific, agricultural and farming support points of view. It also adds a further nail to the coffin of rural and regional Ireland. Notwithstanding the fact that some issues in this report might have to be addressed, the best way to deal with them is not through the closure of this laboratory.

Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I am a little hoarse so I hope the Members will forgive me. I thank the Deputies for raising this matter. It is obviously very important to the region they represent.

The laboratories are an integral part of the Department, providing scientific evidence and expertise which allow the Department to function effectively as a regulator to deal with new and emerging risks and to respond rapidly to disease outbreaks and food safety incidents. The laboratories also provide valued services and advisory support to the farming community, the food industry and wider society.

My Department promotes and regulates an agrifood industry that has ambitious targets for growth and development over the next decade, as set out in Food Wise 2025. Sectoral expansion is already well under way, export trade is increasing year by year and new markets for Irish food are being continually accessed. The integrity of our national offering as a food island must be underpinned by robust systems that protect and enhance our reputation as a producer of safe and wholesome food and we must respond to this challenge by developing and enhancing our capabilities, safeguarding the food chain and public health and ensuring that our food production systems are both economically and environmentally sustainable.

In this context it is essential that we develop a long-term strategy for our laboratories that builds on existing capability and expertise in animal health, food safety and plant sciences and ensures we achieve both operational and scientific excellence. This was the primary reason for tasking a working group led by Professor Alan Reilly with undertaking a comprehensive review of our laboratories. Having considered the current and future needs of the Department and its external stakeholders, this working group presented a report to my Department late last year which makes recommendations on oversight and co-ordination of the laboratories' activities, reorganisation of structures and functions within the central laboratory complex, options for the future development of the regional laboratories with a view to improving disease investigative and surveillance capability but with the overriding imperative of maintaining and enhancing services to farmers and human resources management within the laboratories with a focus on grading structures, career development opportunities and workforce planning.

The Department’s laboratory management team is now consulting with relevant stakeholders, including staff in all of the laboratories, on these recommendations. It is important to emphasise that a decision on any of the working group’s recommendations will await the outcome of this consultative process. In the case of the regional veterinary laboratories, including the Sligo laboratory and its provision of laboratory diagnostic services and surveillance coverage for the north west, any decision will be informed by a cost-benefit analysis of the various options that have been proposed.

I wish to emphasise that a key objective of the strategy we are developing for the laboratories is to improve on our existing capability in surveillance of animal diseases at a national level so as to maintain the reputation of Irish food and food production systems. While delivering on that wider good to the farming community, the Department is also exploring how access to veterinary laboratory services can be maintained and improved on a nationwide basis.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Will the Minister of State give reassurance, especially to the Deputies from Sligo, that the Sligo operation will stay as normal and be continued? It is of the utmost importance. That is also the case with the laboratory in Athlone in my constituency. The west wants to know if the Minister of State will give the assurance that it will be kept going. I will give the other Deputies time to speak.

Tony McLoughlin (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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When one looks at a map of this country, one can see where the other laboratories are located. Beneath a line from Galway to Dublin there is the large laboratory in Backweston in Dublin and the laboratories in Athlone, Limerick, Kilkenny and Cork. The only laboratory above the line is in Sligo and it serves that part of the country. I met some of the laboratory's staff members during the last two weeks. Sean McFadden has served for a long time in the laboratory and has worked extremely hard with Francis Gonley and J. J. Feeney. If the laboratory is closed, which they cannot even envisage, their concerns are about decreased surveillance, inadequate case histories, huge transport costs, cross-contamination, carcase quality, biosecurity and spread of disease. They say an investment in the regional veterinary laboratories is required to provide capital funding to improve and modernise the existing regional veterinary laboratory facilities, proper staffing and resources to achieve accreditation and an upgrade of the laboratory information management system, LIMS, to allow more efficient data analysis and integration with other data systems. Investment in the regional laboratories is an investment in the future of Irish agriculture.

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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To continue Deputy McLoughlin's point, north of the Dublin to Galway line there has been consistent negligence by consecutive Governments in the provision of services. We did not vote to leave the EU or Ireland, but sometimes it feels like it when one considers the neglect. It is easy to write a report or criteria for closing things down. The Minister of State said it will be down to a cost-benefit analysis. What cost does he put on equality of services to the farming families of the north west and to the biosecurity of the part of the country that produces 40% of the country's weanlings? What cost do we put on correctly managing the surveillance of disease outbreak? Deputy McLoughlin and Deputy Fitzmaurice have spoken on this. This is a cross-party matter. It is not parish pump politics or looking for the Sligo Olympic bid to be successful and supported by the Government. We are seeking continuity of services and some level of geographical equality so people can get to the services. This is not the Netherlands. Ireland is not as small as the Netherlands and it does not have the road infrastructure to allow a collection system to work effectively. I appeal to the Minister of State to listen to his colleague, Deputy McLoughlin, and to Deputy Fitzmaurice and me on this issue.

Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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I wish to point out that I have received representations from people in the County Clare side of Limerick relating to the veterinary laboratory there as well. Obviously, we would strongly oppose its closure. However, I welcome the update from the Minister of State that there will be no closures in Limerick.

Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that this a strongly held, cross-party opinion. It is based on people's loyalty to, and concern for, their region. I cannot give Deputy Fitzmaurice a straight answer to his question. I wish I could, but that would pre-empt what will emerge from the consultative process.

At present, there are approximately 12 laboratories, including regional veterinary laboratories, dairy science laboratories and blood testing laboratories. Some of them are co-located and some of them are quite close to each other in other parts of the country. I take on board everything that has been said about the geographical distance. Each regional veterinary laboratory has an effective catchment area for voluntary carcase submission where 90% come from within a radius of 65 km. That is approximately a one hour drive with a car and trailer, which would be the typical type of presentation to a laboratory. Incidentally, I have travelled to Backweston and it has taken me longer to travel there with a carcase than an hour or an hour and a half on a bad day. We had an outbreak a few years ago. We are not even 65 km from Backweston. I probably would have been in Kilkenny quicker.

I take the points on board and the consultation will have to reflect them. Yes, a cost-benefit analysis is part of it, but only part of it. Deputy MacSharry is suspicious that it is tailored to close places but if it is a holistic cost-benefit analysis, it will take account of the cost of collection and transportation, if it is proposed, as opposed to voluntary drive-in. This is about trying to improve the service, not to take from it. It is worthwhile that the Deputies have raised this matter today because they have articulated a view. Deputy Neville also put in his oar for the mid-west.

The challenge is to do the right thing and to make sure the service is maintained for all the regions of the country equally, with an improving reputation that we can maintain for the industry.