Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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359. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will review the regulations governing farmers who have an outbreak of tuberculosis who specialise in beef-finishing, given that beef-finishers are restricted from purchasing livestock and can only sell to a factory, and given that farmers could be completely out of business because of the inability to have a constant supply of livestock. [46880/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The restrictions on buying animals into herds where the presence of TB has been confirmed and the restrictions on selling animals out of these same herds, except directly to slaughter, derive from the EU legislation governing bovine TB eradication programmes. These regulations permit farmers to buy in cattle when the herd has passed one clear TB test. Given that these requirements derive from binding EU legislation, it is not open to my Department to depart from them.

Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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360. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will review the regulations governing the movement of disabled animals as they can be used by some processors as an excuse to reject animals that may have a minimal disability. [46881/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Procedures for dealing with casualty animals are set out in the protocols of my Department’s Veterinary Public Health Inspection Service and the Local Authority Veterinary Service. While there is no obligation on any slaughter plant to process casualty animals, where an animal of this type is accepted, it is subject to the intake checks at the slaughter plant, as well as any additional examinations deemed necessary by the official veterinarian under the terms of relevant food safety and animal welfare regulation.