asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he is aware that in many cases in County Cork TB reactors are not purchased for many weeks after the herd test; and if he will take steps immediately to have the position rectified.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Cattle Purchase Arrangements.
116.
A few cases of delays between the date of the test carried out under the bovine tuberculosis eradication scheme and the date of purchase of reactors have been brought to my attention. My Department are continuing to do everything possible to ensure that animals identified as reactors are removed as quickly as possible.
117.
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he will make special arrangements with the meat factories to purchase cattle from herd owners whose farms are locked up under the brucellosis or TB eradication schemes.
118.
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he will make special arrangements for the purchase of cattle from farmers whose herds are locked up under the brucellosis or TB eradication schemes and in cases in which particular herd owners do not have sufficient fodder to feed the cattle over the next few months.
With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 117 and 118 together.
I cannot compel meat factories to purchase cattle from any particular class of herdowners. However, any herd owner whose herd is locked up under the TB or Brucellosis eradication schemes and who makes private arrangements to sell animals to a meat factory can obtain the necessary movement permit from his local district veterinary office.
Through the continued operation of the EEC beef intervention system, my Department have enabled factories to maintain slaughterings at record levels, thereby reducing the back-log of cattle in the pipeline.
The position is being further helped by exports of live cattle and I am generally hopeful that the present position of over-supply may soon ease.
These are very special cases. The cattle are not suitable for factories and this creates great difficulty for the farmers concerned. There is also the problem of not having enough feed for them.
If the cattle cannot go to factories they must go for slaughter since they cannot be sold on the public market.
They are not suitable for slaughtering and, consequently, they will not be taken at the factories.
If they are not suitable for slaughter and they cannot go on the open market there is no outlet. They would have to be slaughtered.
If these cattle go down in the test the Department would have to buy them then.
Those are the cattle we are talking about, the cattle that have gone down in the test.
Apart from the cattle that go down in the test, there are others.
That is not raised in the question.