The Bill has a number of separate provisions, each of which is related to the programme for the eradication of bovine TB and brucellosis from the national cattle herd.
The eradication of these diseases is possibly the most urgent problem facing the Irish livestock industry today. We have for some time now been operating on the basis of derogations from the EEC's rules on animal disease, especially as they apply to intra-Community trade in bovine animals. These derogations have afforded us some borrowed time—but this is rapidly running out. Currently the derogations are valid only to the end of the present year and the position after that is uncertain. As well as that, the Community has drawn up rules relating to trade in liquid milk and these are likely to foreshadow similar rules relating to trade in manufactured dairy products.
If all these measures are applied in full before we have our disease levels down to acceptable EEC standards the effect on this country's export trade in cattle, beef and dairy products could well be disastrous. When we talk about the urgency of eradicating disease, therefore, what we mean is that the future of the farming industry is at stake.
That is one part of the background against which this Bill must be looked at. The other part is the time and expenditure which have already gone into disease eradication. We are 25 years endeavouring to eradicate bovine TB and no one can be satisfied with the progress we have made—bearing in mind that in the 1979 round of testing one herd in 25 was found to be infected with bovine TB. The campaign to eradicate bovine TB and brucellosis from our herds has already cost the State about £130 million. Even in historical terms that is a huge sum. Translated into present-day values it represents an enormous amount of money.
The first of the main provisions in the Bill is for payment of a levy on all milk supplied for processing and on all cattle slaughtered in the country or exported live. This is designed to implement the Government's decision announced in the Programme for National Development last January that farmers should in future make a direct contribution to the costs of disease eradication. The rates of levy, 0.5p per gallon of milk and £3 per animal slaughtered or exported, will amount to a farmer contribution of £10 million in a full year. This compares with an estimated expenditure of £22 million on disease eradication this year—but the level of expenditure must increase over the next few years as full compulsory brucellosis eradication measures are extended to the whole country.
The Bill next contains enabling provisions on the operation of a price differential between milk from disease-free herds and that from infected herds. I have already mentioned EEC proposals to regulate intra-Community trade in liquid milk. These could effectively exclude from trade all milk derived from herds which are infected with disease. Our trading partners are concerned especially with the public health aspects of bovine TB and brucellosis and are therefore strongly suspicious of imported products from countries like ours where the levels of disease are still high.
I would stress again that the provisions relating to the milk price differential are only of an enabling nature. It seems to me that a reduction in the price of milk coming from diseased herds could be an effective way of getting the owners of these herds to make a final determined effort to get rid of disease once and for all. Price reduction in the short term would certainly be a better alternative than the total exclusion from the market, which might in the longer term be in store for suspect milk.
I have no fixed views as to what the amount of any price differential might be or when it should be introduced. I intend to consult the various interests concerned before deciding to avail of the enabling provisions in the Bill.
A third provision in the Bill allows information to be obtained about the ownership or control of lands where cattle are held. It is often impossible to say who is the real owner or user of lands let or rented or to ascertain the ownership and health status of cattle on the lands. This can frustrate the operation of disease control measures and it is necessary therefore to be able to get the relevant information in these cases.
The Bill also proposes to extend to two years, instead of six months, the time limit for taking proceedings for offences under the Diseases of Animals Act, 1966. Many of the offences under the disease regulations do not come to light for some time after they occur. For example, the illegal movement of animals might be disclosed only several months later in the course of a routine herd test. Other apparent breaches of the regulations require detailed and painstaking investigations over a period of time. There have been many cases where the six month time limit has prevented prosecutions being taken.
The Bill also provides for substantially higher penalties for offences under the Diseases of Animals Act. There has been widespread criticism of the present maximum penalty of £100 for summary conviction as being entirely too low by today's standards. This is being increased to £500 and in the case of conviction on indictment there will be a maximum fine of £2,000 and/or imprisonment of up to two years for offences such as tag-switching or falsifying certificates. Abuse of the disease control regulations has been all too common in the past. Although the abuses may have been perpetrated only by an unscrupulous minority of those involved with cattle, that minority can do untold damage. They have no concern for the damage they might do to the majority or for the future security of the industry from which they make a living.
The penalties now provided for in this Bill are aimed at tag-switchers and other miscreants who continue to flout the regulations and who must realise that time is about to catch up with them. The majority of farmers, together with the genuine cattle traders and the meat processing interests, already realise that the operations of these criminal elements are detrimental to the best interests of the livestock industry. I expect, therefore, that the usual silent majority who want to get on with the job of rooting out disease will become more and more intolerant of those who put their livelihoods at risk. The increased penalties envisaged in this Bill must be seen as an added warning that trafficking in diseased animals will no longer be profitable.
The saver provision in section 24 of the Bill arises from a particular court case. In that case the action at issue was dismissed, so that the court in fact did not decide that any particular orders or actions were invalid or otherwise. However, in the course of the hearing a doubt was raised as to whether a declaration in the Bovine Tuberculosis (Attestation of the State) Order, 1965, to the effect that the State was an area where bovine TB was virtually nonexistent had been properly made. The 1965 order has since been replaced by a comprehensive new order made last September so that any doubt in the matter has been cleared up. The purpose of the saver provision is solely to remove any doubt about the situation that obtained prior to the new order. There are, to my knowledge, no court proceedings in train at present that might be affected or prejudiced by the saver clause.
I have given a brief outline of the main provisions in the Bill. The other sections of the Bill which I have not mentioned relate to keeping and examination of records, the making of returns, the prosecution of offences and so on and they are consequential to those main provisions.
The Bill is a necessary step in the drive to eradicate bovine TB and brucellosis from this country as quickly as possible. The accelerated programme to hasten the achievement of that goal which I launched last September has been well received and is already proving effective but we still have a long way to go before we will be rid of these two diseases. The process of getting rid of them may well be painful for some, but it is a process we must face up to for the benefit of farming in general.
I have no hesitation, therefore, in recommending the Bill to the Seanad.