Mary Henry (Independent)

It was the sad death, at such an early age, of Dolly, the first cloned sheep, that made me think of the issue of scrapie because I was very interested in the scheme set up by the Minister for Agriculture and Food last year. Scrapie is a fatal degenerative disease affecting the central nervous system of sheep and goats. It is one of the diseases classified as transmissable spongiform encephalopathies. Infected flocks which contain a high percentage of susceptible animals can experience significant production losses. There has been increased attention paid to scrapie, which has been known for more than 250 years, since the link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people and feline spongiform encephalopathy in cats became known in the recent past.

The cause of scrapie is not definitely known. It could be a small virus or prion but it is known that some sheep are less susceptible to infection than others. With advances in genetics, the genotype of those sheep can be ascertained and efforts made to ensure these are the flocks where breeding for the national flock is promoted. Wisely, the Minister for Agriculture and Food announced a programme on the genotyping of sheep last July. This programme, which is voluntary, requires the genotyping and identification of resistant animals and the tracking of their movement off-farm. If we could say the national flock was scrapie free, it would be a splendid selling point in the promotion of the sale of our lamb, both at home and abroad. I would be glad if the Minister of State would tell me what progress is being made on this important issue.

Senator Quinn brought up a related issue on the Order of Business today. Seeing that the removal of the subsidy for the export of meat and bonemeal to renderers who destroy all the offal and bone from potentially infected animals is imminent, can the Minister of State tell me what it is proposed can be done with this material? There is no sale for it here, we have no incinerator in which to burn it and could have to resort to very expensive storage again.