2026-05-14

90. Deputy Natasha Newsome Drennan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to provide an update on the TB action plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35742/26]

Question No. 90, in the name of Deputy Newsome Drennan, will be taken by Deputy Martin Kenny.

This question relates to the TB action plan. I would like to get an update on it. The new rules came in last month. A lot of farmers and farm organisations have been critical of the level of communication they have received from the Department in regard to the new rules, how it is set out, the new categories and all of that. We need to see very clear communications to ensure that farmers know they are going to be able to fit into this programme. Everybody in the country, particularly everyone in the farming community, wants to see TB eradicated.

I thank the Deputy. I am aware of the financial and emotional impacts and challenges for Irish farmers, their families and rural communities presented by a bovine TB breakdown. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in bovine TB levels nationally. To address these high disease levels, I have undertaken extensive engagement with stakeholders and farm organisations to agree measures to tackle them. I launched the Bovine TB Action Plan: Addressing Bovine TB in Ireland in September. It includes five measures and 30 actions underpinned by scientific research, evidence and veterinary expertise. Those five pillars are: to support herds free of bovine TB to remain free; to reduce the impact of wildlife on the spread of bovine TB; to detect and eliminate bovine TB infection as early as possible in herds with a bovine TB outbreak and avoid a future outbreak; to help farmers improve all areas of on-farm biosecurity, and only this week I opened and launched a €6 million scheme whereby farmers would be available to avail of practical supports around fencing off badger setts on their holdings and raising water troughs as well; and to reduce the impact of known high-risk animals in spreading bovine TB. The aim of the action plan is to reset the TB programme by putting in place measures necessary to tackle the current disease situation. On 13 April, a number of changes were introduced to animal testing and animal movement requirements under the bovine TB programme to reduce the transmission of bovine TB from cattle to cattle. I recognise that this is a big change farmers and is the first real manifestation they are seeing of the new plan in action. I thank in particular the marts, which have tried to help in communicating this new understanding. Those changes on 13 April include: the removal of the post-movement test option for all cows and for males over 36 months of age; all dairy cows moved into a breeding herd now requiring a 30-day pre-movement test; a 30-day pre-movement test for contract-reared heifers; the gamma interferon, GIF, test in large breakdowns of breeding herds; and a restriction on the sale of exposed cohorts where GIF testing is carried out in larger breeding herds for a period of time.

I thank the Minister. I appreciate all of that and that there is work being done. The marts have been central to this because that is where a lot of farmers are coming into the situation. They are unaware of what category their cattle fall into when they are going to the mart, and that is a big issue because then they do not know who can buy them. A lot of farmers are finding it very difficult to navigate this whole process. Farm organisations have been very critical of it. The Department was supposed to set up a dedicated helpline that farmers could contact. My understanding is that they are getting no answer to any of the calls they make to that helpline. There is an issue in respect of that and I think it needs to be addressed as quickly as possible. Farmers selling cattle are unaware of who can buy them and what category they fall into, and it makes them very reticent and concerned about the whole scheme and how it is going to work out for them. The risk of TB is a serious problem for a lot of farmers, particularly when they are in an area where there may have been a number of reactors on farms around them and they are very concerned about it. Of course they want to work with a system that will eradicate TB but they cannot do so if they do not understand it and if it is not clear and concise. That needs to change.

Being clear and concise is important. Change is a challenge for everybody but we had to change our approach. The approach needs to be targeted, and that is what this is. We have to recognise where the key challenge is. A reduction in bovine TB levels in breeding herds, especially in dairy herds, is a key element in driving down bovine TB levels nationally. I think of the constituency and the region that the Deputy represents, where it would be predominantly sucklers and not as much dairy. The purchase of breeding heifers from high-risk dairy herds and bringing them up to the Deputy's area, where there might be low-risk herds, has been a contributor in the past to the spread of this disease in a significant way. These changes are all based on science and are targeted. The Deputy is right, in that there was much criticism of some parts of the plan last year. I met a lot of resistance here to tackling the area of risk categorisation, but risk categorisation of the high-risk animal is the right thing to do. The simple fact that we started talking about that all last summer is indicative of the reduction of numbers we had, which I will outline in supplementary.

I am not disagreeing with the Minister in that regard but the difficulty we have is that farmers who want to play ball and work with the system are finding it very difficult to do so because they do not understand it. It is not clear. The Minister said that being "clear and concise" was vital. It has not been made clear to farmers and they are very concerned that they do not know what impact this is going to have on them. That special line that was supposed to be set up needs to be working properly and farmers need to be communicated with. The Department has all the information. It knows every farmer and what their herds are. It knows what categories they fall into. It needs to communicate that across the board to everybody so that, similar to the marts, everybody is clear on where they stand. I know that the marts are vital to this but we should not be in a situation where the Department of agriculture is implementing a strategy and depending on what are private entities - the marts around the country - to communicate what that strategy is. We need to have another way of doing that. That is the difficulty people have. Everybody wants to co-operate and work with this. We just need a bit of clarity around it.

The helpline is up and running and has been since the middle of April. Communication has been a key part of everything I have done here. I will counter somewhat the Deputy's point that the message is not getting through. I refer to the encouraging progress of recent months in reducing bovine TB levels. Over the 12 months to 3 May, the herd incidence was 5.42%, down from 6.29%, the number of herds restricted was down by just over 5,400, or 14.8%, and the number of reactors was over 35,400, down 15.71%. We have seen significant reductions in herd incidence and reactor numbers in the past year. I believe that this reduction nationally is due to the combined efforts of all stakeholders in supporting farmers in reducing risk of bovine TB in their herds. I am confident that the changes I have introduced will help drive the disease down further but I have no doubt that the discussions we had last summer, notwithstanding all of the reaction I got to them, made farmers in low-risk areas ask questions about what the risk category of the animal they were buying was. That is a conversation that needed to happen and it has definitely fed into these numbers.