Pat Casey (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and thank my colleague for sharing this Commencement debate with me. It relates to an ongoing challenge facing west Wicklow and my own area of east Wicklow, in the uplands area. The figures speak for themselves. There is tuberculosis, TB, in one in every six herds in Wicklow. Some 4% of herds nationally have TB and have had restrictions placed on them whereas this figure is 18% in Wicklow, four times the national average. Some 5.4% of the cattle herd in Wicklow are reactors. The figure nationally is only 1.8%. These figures come from the Department. As I have said, this is an ongoing issue. Some 16% of the deer population carry TB.

I will quote a farmer in west Wicklow, Tom Stephenson. He has said:

Farmers in this area have been completely abandoned. There is what can only be described as a plague upon us and we have no way of ridding ourselves of this scourge. We can restock time and time again after a lock-up but the same thing just happens again. It’s a heart-breaking way of operating which just can’t continue.

We all know that the number of deer in Wicklow continues to increase. We see them grazing farmers' fields every day. Coming from one of the most scenic areas of Wicklow, where I have the pleasure of walking the mountains, it is quite frightening how close we, as humans, can come to the deer population. The deer will not move even if people come within 1 m or 2 m. In my own valley of Glendalough, we are now feeding deer by hand outside the hotel. This is frightening because it is not a natural occurrence. It is having a severe impact on the lives of farmers and their families. I will now give way to my colleague, Senator O'Loughlin.