Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Hayes, to the House.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. This issue was brought to my attention some months ago by a young farmer who had recently inherited his father's farm. We are all asked by Government and farming associations to encourage people to transfer family farms to young people who, perhaps, would be more efficient in terms of how they do their business and who are committed to farming and to improving farming practices.

Much has happened in recent budgets to facilitate the transition, and inheritance, from fathers to sons or daughters.

This situation that I bring to the attention of the Minister this morning relates to bovine viral diarrhoea, BVD, testing. For a myriad of reasons, it is important that BVD testing is done. For any particular herd, there is two-year compulsory BVD testing and then there is optional yearly testing. In this case, the father did the BVD testing on the herd in 2012 and 2013, and his son, who inherited the same cows in 2014, was required to repeat the process and do another two years of BVD testing. I know this family well. They are based in a part of County Clare that has extremely good-quality farming practices. It is a bureaucratic nuisance and an unnecessary financial burden to require a son to do testing, at some expense, on a closed herd that has already been tested by his father.

These are the types of bureaucratic problem that we need to deal with. There is no need for it. The herd had complied with the BVD testing requirements at a cost to the young man's father, yet when this young man, who has gone through third-level farming colleges and has his certificates - he is a good farmer - inherits the farm he must repeat the process simply because his father decided to sign over the farm to him. It seems grossly unfair and unnecessary because it involves the same cattle. Traceability has resulted in this country having an extremely impressive reputation abroad. Why are we requiring a son to turn around and repeat the process that has been done in a closed herd, that has been fully traced and is fully accounted for? It seems ridiculous. At this late stage, in this particular case, the details of which I will give the Minister of State afterwards, is there some way of giving a rebate or even a partial rebate to a farming family who are just starting out with good intentions and are doing their business correctly? They inherited a herd for which the business was done right. Surely a common-sense approach must be adopted here. More fundamentally, because there is money involved, the policy needs to changed. It needs to be rectified and it needs to be streamlined.

Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Conway for giving me the opportunity to come to the House this morning to address this important issue.

The Senator highlighted the case of a particular individual, a young farmer. One must bear in mind at the outset, before I get into the exact detail, that never before in the history of the State have so many concessions for young farmers been introduced in a budget.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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I accept that.

Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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In fact, only last week I addressed a meeting in Tipperary where the hall was packed. It was addressed by persons who have considerable ambition for the agricultural sector, and one of the issues they spoke about was how to produce food - meat, such as beef, or milk - not only in a cost-effective manner but in such a way that one could sell it on to the world market, where there is demand, and get a high price, which Ireland is now demanding and getting all over the world.

The introduction of the industry-led national BVD eradication programme on 1 January 2013 came after a number of years of careful planning by Animal Health Ireland and after the implementation of a voluntary scheme in 2012. This compulsory phase required farmers to tag and test calves born after that date for all breeding herds. Under the programme, where positive results are detected, herds are required to undergo further testing, particularly to clarify the status of the dam of the positive calf. Some 80,000 breeding herds are now participating in the programme, of which approximately 7,200 also took part in the voluntary phase of the programme in 2012.

The experience of the first two years of the BVD eradication programme has been very encouraging. The rate of compliance with the requirement to test for BVD has been almost perfect, with just fractionally less than 100% of calves born in those years having been tested for the disease.

From the outset, Animal Health Ireland has made it clear that the eradication programme will fall into two three-year periods. In the first of these periods, all herds are required to tag and test calves with the aim of achieving negative test status. Negative test status can be achieved by identifying and removing animals that are persistently infected with the BVD virus from herds, or through accumulation of negative test results. Already, more than 4,000 herds that entered the programme in 2012 have achieved negative herd status.

During the second three-year period, the emphasis of the programme will be on monitoring to ensure that herds that have achieved a negative herd status remain free of infection while dealing with remaining herds where infection is still present. It is intended that this monitoring will be available at a reduced cost relative to that available in the first three years of the programme, and it is already the case that herds that have achieved negative herd status can avail of testing at a rate approximately 25% less than that previously required of them. Work is ongoing to investigate alternative methods of monitoring that will offer further cost savings, and it is hoped that these will be available for the 2016 calving season.

The need for continued monitoring is all the more vital in light of the retention by a minority of herd owners of persistently infected animals that have been identified in the programme to date. In addition, while the overall level of engagement by farmers with the programme has been exemplary, the failure of a small number of herd owners to participate poses a further risk to the programme achieving its goals in a timely fashion. My Department is conscious of the financial burden that the testing regime imposes on farmers, but the position is that the presence of persistently infected animals in a herd necessarily reduces the profitability of the herd on an ongoing basis and the eradication programme is designed to remove the source of this income loss on a permanent basis. That is the key. This is a cost factor, a negative cost on farmers. If the disease was eradicated it would improve their profit margins, particularly in light of difficult financial circumstances such as the fall in beef prices in September and October last.

I should express my gratitude to the BVD implementation group for its solid contribution towards the development and management of this eradication programme, which is of great significance to the farming community. I ask the BVD implementation group to renew its efforts in advancing the programme in the course of 2015, as farmers do not want a prolonged or drawn-out programme. My Department will be glad to support the group in the implementation of the additional necessary measures.

Finally, it should be noted that while farmers bear the cost of testing in the programme, and the testing period may appear to some farmers to be unduly long, the end result for farmers is worthwhile because analysis has shown that the annual benefits to farmers of the eradication of BVD are estimated to be in the region of €100 million.

That is a considerable amount of money in the overall context of agriculture. It is all about profitability. It is in everybody's interests to reduce the costs and to make farming more and more profitable. It is of the utmost important that disease is eradicated and that the associated cost is reduced. I accept the point made by Senator Conway and I would be only too glad to meet with Senator Conway to speak about the constituent in question in order to see whether we can help. In terms of the overall good, one cannot focus on one particular individual. The issue relates to the agricultural industry and farmers in general - a considerable number of people. The current approach has been fully backed by the veterinary profession and it is good for agriculture in general and for farmers. That is the reason the testing process is in place.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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No one disputes that. I wish to make two very quick points that I omitted to make in my opening remarks. The first is that the gentleman's father voluntarily participated in the scheme in 2012, along with the 7,500 other farmers in the country who were involved. Second, his herd was shown to be negative for the disease. With respect to the officials who prepared the Minister of State's script, who did it very well in terms of giving us an overall analysis of BVD, the point I made related to the double charging of a father and son with a specific closed herd that was tested in 2012, 2013 and 2014, and the fact that they must now repeat the process for another two years.

Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)
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Senator Conway has gone way over time.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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An additional cost is being incurred. The farming family in question will incur double costs through no fault of their own following the transfer of the farm from father to son. Surely to God the Minister of State would agree that is not fair.

Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Irrespective of whoever prepared the script, I know something of the matter. As someone who inherited a farm myself, I know that the first thing one must do is to transfer the herd number. It would be grossly unfair to select one person and to say that because a farm was transferred the family should be relieved of their responsibilities and duties. The responsibility lies with the herd keeper, be it an old person or a young person. The herd is monitored on the basis of the herd number. Senator Conway is not correct in the assertion he made about the transfer of the farm from father to son. The same animals are at issue but under a different herd keeper. The disease must be monitored and checked. One could not accept the argument made by Senator Conway that the family in question should be exempt from the scheme because the farm has passed from father to son. That would be silly and wrong.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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But they should-----

Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I ask the Senator to wait a moment. It is akin to saying that following the transfer of the farm from father to son the herd should not be tested for TB.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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But they should not be penalised financially for doing it.