Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 24 March 2021
1980. Deputy Jackie Cahill asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of badger vaccinations for TB that have been carried out in the past five years, by county; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14916/21]
View answerIn 2018, a policy of vaccination of badgers against tuberculosis (TB) was added as an integral part of the bovine TB eradication programme following successful field trials carried out in Ireland. Given the technical expertise and logistics involved, it took several months to scale up the badger vaccination programme. From a rate of approximately 1,000 badger vaccinations per year during the field trials in the years up to 2018, the number of badgers vaccinated annually reached over 3,000 in 2020.
Every badger in the vaccination area is now being recorded electronically when and where it is captured and vaccinated. Over time, this will lead to more information regarding badger movements and survival. In 2020, 68% of badgers being captured in vaccination areas were new captures and were not vaccinated previously. This is expected to fall over time as greater population penetration is achieved. In Waterford, where trials were carried out for years prior to badger vaccination being adopted as policy, approximately 50% of all badgers captured in the vaccination area were previously vaccinated. This indicates very good penetration of the resident population with vaccination. Of the 4,698 badgers that were captured in the vaccination area nationally last year, 3,004 were vaccinated with BCG, 258 were removed for bovine TB epidemiological reasons, 885 had been previously vaccinated and three were euthanised for health reasons.
Our capturing season finishes at the end of May every year when capturing badgers ceases due to low success rates during the Summer warm months. It must also be noted that badger removal is prioritised in any given Regional Veterinary Office when an area subject to an active TB breakdown in cattle needs to be urgently addressed. Therefore, badger vaccination efforts vary from region to region at different times of the year based on disease risk and disease priorities.
As the badger vaccination programme has just been scaled up effectively since 2019, detailed data is only available for 2019 and 2020 rather than the past five years. Up to 2018, badger vaccination was only carried out in areas which were part of the field trials, which have been described in the scientific literature.
|
County |
Badgers vaccinated in 2019 |
Badgers vaccinated in 2020 |
|
Carlow |
0 |
39 |
|
Cavan |
42 |
44 |
|
Clare |
0 |
0 |
|
Cork |
131 |
252 |
|
Donegal |
29 |
105 |
|
Dublin |
11 |
0 |
|
Galway |
103 |
137 |
|
Kerry |
21 |
186 |
|
Kildare |
0 |
184 |
|
Kilkenny |
320 |
409 |
|
Laois |
36 |
151 |
|
Leitrim |
0 |
20 |
|
Limerick |
18 |
110 |
|
Longford |
67 |
141 |
|
Louth |
55 |
189 |
|
Mayo |
27 |
161 |
|
Meath |
9 |
34 |
|
Monaghan |
62 |
89 |
|
Offaly |
43 |
91 |
|
Roscommon |
65 |
88 |
|
Sligo |
0 |
0 |
|
Tipperary |
155 |
270 |
|
Waterford |
189 |
165 |
|
Westmeath |
0 |
0 |
|
Wexford |
0 |
109 |
|
Wicklow |
8 |
30 |
|
Annual total |
1,391 |
3,004 |
