Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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298. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the position regarding compensation available for calves from dairy herds with BVD; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43532/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) eradication programme, the statutory basis for which is set out in S.I. 532 of 2012, requires that calves indicating an initial positive or inconclusive test for the BVD virus be removed from the herd. I have made compensation available to suckler cow farmers who have multiple cases of persistently infected (PI) calves in their herds in order to encourage the early disposal of these calves. The compensation scheme offers farmers €100 for the second and subsequent calves removed from suckler herds to a knackery with a date of death notified to my Department’s Animal Identification Movement System (AIM). The compensation is confined to suckler herds because the “payback period” in these herds is more than twice that of dairy herds: it is estimated that the benefit of the eradication of this disease to dairy farmers will exceed the cost involved after a period of 6 months.