Mary White (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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Question 592: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the number of badgers captured by each district veterinary office, by year, in the past ten years. [47250/08]

Mary White (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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Question 593: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the number of badgers, by district veterinary office licence, which have been subject to post-mortem. [47251/08]

Mary White (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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Question 594: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the number of badgers that were subject to post-mortem which tested positive for tuberculosis per district veterinary office licence. [47252/08]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 592 to 594, inclusive, together.

All badgers captured are subject to a gross post mortem. However, due to the low sensitivity of the technique, the Department carries out pooled tissue culturing on a percentage of all badgers captured (currently approximately 2,500) across all of the DVOs. Culturing a pooled sample, which involves mixing tissue extracted from up to 14 sites from an individual badger, is significantly less sensitive than the most detailed culturing techniques available (which involve culturing 30 pieces of tissue for each badger), but is deemed to be sufficient for research purposes. From a cost perspective, it would not be economic to carry out laboratory culturing on all badgers and the current arrangements are considered by this Department to be a prudent use of scarce resources. Where detailed post mortem with culturing of tissue is undertaken, TB has been confirmed in 45%-50% of badgers.

The number of badgers that have been subject to post mortem and the results of these for each District Veterinary Office area are not available. The total number of badgers captured over the past 10 years is set out as follows:

A detailed breakdown of the numbers captured by each DVO is not currently available. However, my Department will provide the Deputy with this information as soon as it can be compiled.