Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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43. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if an audit will be conducted regarding the records from fallen animal companies, that is, businesses that collect deceased farm animals, comparing the past five years (details supplied) with the previous five years; the number of newborn calves that have died from scour and pneumonia, BVD related, during those two periods, respectively; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18188/18]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The figures for reported on farm deaths, as notified to the Animal Identification Movement system, over the period of 2007 – 2017 are set out in the following table.

On Farm Deaths 2007 – 2017

These data, recorded by fallen animal collection operators on behalf of farmers, do not capture causes of death. My Department therefore does not have statistics on the causes of bovine deaths. The costs associated with putting in place a system to diagnose and record the cause of death would be prohibitive.

The National Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) Eradication Programme is an industry- led programme delivered by Animal Health Ireland (AHI). A voluntary programme was introduced in 2012 and this became compulsory in 2013. The legislative basis for the programme is currently set out in S.I. No. 30 of 2017, the Bovine Viral Diarrhoea Order 2017. This requires that all animals born on or after the 1 January 2013 are tested for the presence of the BVD virus. Animals found to be persistently infected (P.I.) are disposed of. Progress to date has been excellent with numbers of persistently infected animals reducing year on year as follows:

The vast majority of these animals were disposed of through the knackery system, thus contributing to the overall on-farm death data above, with a small number being slaughtered. It will be noted that the eradication programme has been successful in bringing about a major reduction in the incidence of PI animals being born and thereby lowers the risk of disease spread.

However, it can be deduced from the above that in the 5 years leading up to the introduction of the National BVD Eradication Programme in 2013 approximately 14,000 PI animals were born in each of these years. The animals in question are likely to have suffered ill thrift and died at a young age before being removed to a knackery.

Control of BVD – a condition which compromises the immune response capability of animals - also brings overall health benefits to the national herd, with animals being better able to respond to other infection risks.