Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)
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Question 766: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine further to Parliamentary Question No. 168 of 17 May 2012, if he will review his answer in view of correspondence (details supplied) which contradicts earlier assertions by his Department. [27140/12]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department has reviewed my reply to Parliamentary Question 168 in light of the attached correspondence.

With regard to the Brucellosis test in May 1977, the information available to my Department is that 26 cows were tested and 3 cows were disclosed as reactor on foot of this test. However, the herd owner refused to accept a restriction notice issued by my Department under the Brucellosis Order and no animals were removed as reactor until December 1977. According to the Department's files, compensation amounting to £17,000 was paid to the herd owner in May 1978 in respect of reactors removed between October 1977 and March 1978.

With regard to the number of cattle in the herd of the herd owner in question, the Department has had considerable difficulty in establishing the precise number of cows in his herd because of the illegal movement of animals into and out of the herd during the period in question and the failure of the herd owner to present all of his animals at any one test, with the exception of the test carried out on 30 September 1978, when he presented 107 animals for test. The Department's reference to 107 animals as constituting his herd merely refers to the number of animals in his herd which were presented for the last test carried out on his herd on 30 September 1978 before it was depopulated.

I would like to emphasise that these events happened about 34 years ago and were disposed of by the Courts in 1982. Approximately €66,000 was paid as compensation to the herd owner in respect of disease breakdowns in his herd during the period 1977 and 1978. He also received considerable sums of money from meat factories for the meat value of the cattle, including reactors, in his herd during that period. Any further claim for compensation he is now making is long since statute barred, which Statute the Department fully relies on. Finally, I should point out that the State was awarded costs amounting to approximately €51,400 against the person in question arising from his unsuccessful High Court challenge in 1998 against the Department's decision to withdraw his herd number in November 1978. The person has continually refused to pay these costs. The Chief State Solicitors Office is currently seeking to recover these costs from him on behalf of the State.