asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he has given instructions to veterinary surgeons to stop vaccinating heifer calves with Strain 19 vaccine; and, if so, for what reason.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Vaccination of Calves.
4.
Despite its undoubted protective value, Strain 19, being a live vaccine, has the defect of inducing a persistent reaction to the brucellosis blood test when used in animals over six months of age and consequently there is a danger that vaccinated animals which have not got brucellosis may nevertheless be adjudged to be reactors and slaughtered when the eradication measures are extended.
The Veterinary Directives of the EEC forbid the use of Strain 19 in officially certified brucellosis free herds within the community. It is understood that an amendment, at present under consideration by the Council of the Community, would exclude meat from animals which had been vaccinated with Strain 19 from trade within the community.
The calfhood vaccination scheme, which operated in eleven counties, was suspended in November last, due to the foot and mouth disease emergency. I have decided not to revive it and I am at present considering the introduction, to replace it, of a scheme involving the use of the new killed vaccine on breeding heifers.
I may add that for some time past my Department has specified the use of killed vaccine in permitting the vaccination of adult animals.
Would the Minister agree that there has been some breakdown in communications between the Department and the farmers in regard to this matter? As the Minister is aware, I was responsible for urging farmers to vaccinate cattle against brucellosis. That was in the early stages when Strain 19 first became available. It has now, apparently, become undesirable, in view of the brucellosis eradication scheme, to pursue the original scheme but there seems to be some failure on the part of the Department to communicate clearly to the farmers the reasons for the change, and I suggest to the Minister that there ought to be—possibly through this monthly information journal the Department issues and which is copied into the provincial press—some more detailed explanation of the reason why it is desirable not to vaccinate with Strain 19.
I will consider further publicity in that way.
Is the Minister further aware that some farmers, due to the advice given by veterinary surgeons, injected cows in calf with Strain 19? The cows aborted and the farmers concerned lost both the cows and the calves. Is there any way of compensating these people? I know one farmer in Westmeath who has been completely wiped out. He refused to sell his herd in the open market and had to sell what remained to a beef factory at half price rather than contaminate the whole country by selling cows with brucellosis on the open market. He lost six or seven of them due to the fact that he was advised when the heifers were in calf to vaccinate with Strain 19. Is there any form of compensation in such case?
As the Deputy and the House are probably aware, wherever he got the information or advice —presumably from some veterinary surgeon—that is not advice ever tendered by my Department, nor has it ever been suggested by my Department that this practice should be adopted.
He was on to the Agricultural Institute about his case at the time.
He may well have been.
Yes.
Advice to vaccinate these cows while in calf is certainly not advice ever proffered by the Department of Agriculture, to my knowledge, either now or in the past. As to the question whether anything can be done about compensation in this case, I can only suggest that I will have a look at it but, certainly, we do not in any circumstances admit that it has been by any policy of ours that this sort of advice would have been tendered.
I will get the farmer concerned to submit the whole case to the Minister, and that is fair enough.