I move:
That Seanad Éireann approves the following Regulations in draft:
Bovine Diseases (Levies) Regulations, 1985
copies of which were laid in draft before the Seanad on the 13th day of December, 1985.
Bovine Diseases (Levies) Regulations, 1985: Motion.
The proposed regulations are being made under the Bovine Diseases (Levies) Act, 1979, which was introduced at that time to secure a financial contribution from the farming sector towards the cost of the bovine TB and brucellosis eradication programme. The rates of levy were £3 per animal slaughtered or exported and 0.5p per gallon of milk.
The levies have since been adjusted from time to time. The current rates, yielding an estimated £13.4 million in a full year, were introduced in the context of the national plan. They stand at £3.80 a head on cattle and 0.6p a gallon on milk and apply up to the end of 1985. The House will recall that these rates were settled in association with the introduction of a number of changes in the TB eradication programme — all designed to accelerate the elimination of that disease.
In fixing the Estimates for 1986 it has been decided to continue the existing rates of levy. In coming to this decision the Government had to take account of the overall budget prospects for 1986 and of the fact that there has been a substantial shortfall in revenue in the year just ending. As the House will be aware, the Government have been very responsive to the serious difficulties faced by farmers throughout 1985 and made substantial extra funds available to alleviate those difficulties.
This House will be aware of the significant changes that have taken place over the past year in our approach to the problem of bovine disease. Despite committing large resources to the eradication campaign we had not succeeded in recent years in making worthwhile inroads against the disease. It was against this background that the Government decided on the introduction of important changes in procedures, which were outlined in the national plan, and which have since been put into operation under the current programme of testing. At the same time, they gave a commitment to funding for the programme over the three year period of the plan.
The new, more streamlined and disciplined arrangements have been working well since the start of the current round last June. While the overall level of disease prevalence, that is 3.62 per cent or 6,917 herds locked up as at the end of November, still gives cause for concern, I am satisfied that the intensive nature of the testing this year has enabled us to identify the extent of the disease problem and provides a basis for a significant improvement in the situation in 1986 and 1987.
As far as brucellosis is concerned, about 500 herds are now restricted because of the disease. Our aim is to cut this figure by half by the end of the current round next spring. I would expect that, barring some unexpected reversals, the national herd should be virtually free of brucellosis at that stage. Also at that stage I will be in a position to give serious consideration to the question of declaring the national herd officially brucellosis free.
This is the second time that the Minister has come before us today asking for an increase in levies. This is a terrible situation at a time when farmers are so hard-pressed trying to meet their commitments. I had hoped that the Minister would have some good news to deliver on this occasion, but unfortunately he has not. Apparently the disease levies are going to continue for another period. The levies may seem small but when they are all added up they are quite sizable. There is a levy of £3.80 on every animal slaughtered at the factory or exported live. There is a veterinary inspection cost of £3.25 and a CBF levy which was increased today by £1. This brings us to a total of over £8 on every animal. You also have other deductions which go to the farming organisations such as the IFA and the ICMSA, so that a sizeable amount is deducted from the farmer who sells his cattle at the mart or at the factory for slaughter. When you consider that he also has to pay transport for those cattle and pay the vet to test them it certainly is eating into his profits.
The dairy farmer is faced with the same situation. He has his own share of levies to cover. He has the disease levies, the butter inspection levies, the super-levy and so on. I suppose this amounts to 5p or 6p per gallon on every gallon of milk produced, If you take a dairy farmer who has a herd of 30 cows, for all the levies he would pay in the region of £1,050 in a full year; a 40-cow farmer would pay £1,400; a 50-cow farmer would pay £1,750; a 60-cow farmer £2,100; an 80-cow farmer £2,800, and so on. These people are making their contribution to the Government under the bovine disease levies. This levy was introduced mainly to secure a financial contribution from the farming sector towards the cost of the bovine TB and brucellosis eradication programmes. Rates of £1.90 per bovine animal slaughtered or exported live and 0.3 pence per gallon of milk produced were introduced with effect from 1 January 1984. Of course, these figures have been doubled again to £3.80 per bovine animal slaughtered or exported live and 0.6p per gallon of milk produced from November 1984 to the present time. When we were introducing this increase last year it was expected to produce a figure of £7 million in 1985. We all accept that money has to be provided for the eradication of bovine TB and brucellosis. A figure of £31.5 million was provided in 1985 for the eradication programme, an increase of £10.4 million on the 1984 allocation. The figures before that averaged around £20 million.
Brucellosis eradication is at an advanced stage. That seems to be more or less under control. Britain have declared a brucellosis-free area. As the Minister knows, this has created problems for farmers, particularly in the west of Ireland who are exporting heifers. In spite of all the money we have spent on the eradication programme the measures applied have managed only to contain the disease at an incidence of around 2.5 per cent of herds.
I would like the Minister here today to tell us how successful the measures which the Government introduced last year have proved. Have the direct nominations of veterinary surgeons for TB and brucellosis scheme testing proved successful? Has there been any tightening up of the supervision at marts or has there been any increase in prosecutions for breaches of disease regulations? These are measures which we were promised last year when we were giving the Minister the go-ahead for the increase in the levies we are discussing here today. We are entitled to know how successful those measures have been. Are there any changes to be made or does the Minister see the incidence of TB dropping substantially? We are entitled to know that at the present time.
The cost of the scheme to date, I suppose, is in the region of £800 million, excluding the administration. This of course has been a massive drain on Exchequer funds. I cannot understand why we cannot or have not come to grips with this problem before now, if all this money has been spent on it. We have the expertise, the advice; we can see what has happened in other European countries; and we must be the laughing stock of Europe to think that all those countries have got their disease under control while here we still find, in 1985 after about 30 years operating the scheme that in certain areas the incidence of disease is higher today than it was ever before. That is a terrible statement to have to make after spending all this money on that scheme and after draining the Exchequer to the extent of £800 million over those years. A lot could be done and everybody has to accept responsibility for it. But the example has to be given by the Government. The laws are there, if they are enforced. We can see areas where the scheme can be tightened up, where the law can be applied and where people who are breaking the law can be prosecuted, and are not being prosecuted.
The one area that I see where there is complete laxity is in the sale of reactors. This is an area that should be tightened up substantially. I cannot understand why the vets testing the animals should not be permitted to issue a certificate and have that animal removed to the factory immediately. As far as I am concerned reactor animals should not be sold to dealers because that is only prolonging and spreading the disease. I see no reason why those animals could not be sent off to the mart or factory right away and disposed of. If we are serious about the eradication of the disease all those measures, no matter how drastic they might seem, should be taken and should be enforced to see that this disease is eradicated from our national herd.
The national herd is very important to the economy. As regards our exports of live cattle and beef we have gained substantial ground in the European market; we have made our mark in North Africa and Egypt, in Libya, Germany, France and so on. It is unfortunate that we still have to be struggling with this problem of disease eradication. The time has come for the Government to be serious about this problem. It is costing too much money and is causing great hardship to farmers who have their herds locked up for considerable periods of time, which is a great loss to them. Steps should be taken to minimise the hardship for all those people. I hope the Minister will be able to give us some outline of how successful the scheme has proved which was introduced last year and which is part of the Government's national plan and whether any changes are envisaged in the future.
Senator Hussey said that the disease situation had not improved from the day it began. Back in 1954 in my own parish in Bansha the late Father Hayes, who was a very far-seeing man, started what was then termed a pilot project for the eradication of bovine tuberculosis. At that time the level of infection in herds was unbelievably high, so high indeed that if action was not taken at that time on a voluntary basis by farmers — and in later days by the Department in a compulsory scheme — I have no doubt that no market would be available today for our produce, either live cattle or in the whole area of cattle trading at all. For that reason I would disagree with Senator Hussey when he says that no progress has been made. We set out that time to ensure that a market would be available for our produce. I am glad to say that a major achievement of the whole scheme, no matter how slow it has been, is that we have been able to go into the marketplace with animals which have passed a stringent tuberculosis test which ensures that they are available to be sold on the markets, whether it be in Britain, Northern Ireland or elsewhere. From that point of view the scheme has been successful. It has involved a lot of effort from many people; from the farmers themselves, who have been the major losers in this whole area; from the veterinary profession, who have put a lot of effort and work into it; and, indeed, from the Department. As a member of the Animal Health Council I want to commend the officials of the Department on that council who are well aware of the problems of tuberculosis and of what needs to be done to ensure we can achieve a status for our national herd which cannot be surpassed by anybody else in Europe. We are not aware of the figures from Northern Ireland or Britain but I am sure they also have their isolated pockets and areas and levels of infection. On a monthly basis Mr. Noonan, who is with us today as an adviser to the Minister, makes available to us statistics from the whole country indicating the level of performance of the testing, the level of reaction to the tests, the level of reactors isolated in the factory and the level of lesions available from animals either tested positive or indeed having been sold as clear cattle. The Department, in fact, have got their act together on this over the last number of years to such an extent that I am optimistic now, for the first time, that we can deal with this major scandal of disease and disease eradication.
I think also that the media have treated the subject in an unfair manner. You can make any figure relative to anything; but if you relate the cost of this scheme to the overall value of the herds, it is a significant contribution to the whole industry. For that reason it is appropriate that the people involved in this, the farmers, should and have been making a contribution towards the eradication of the disease. I admit that the plan envisaged that these levies would be eliminated at the end of this year, and I also had hoped that that would be the case. But if one looks at the overall input by Government into the scheme, running at something like £30 million or more — and possibly over the next three our four years an additional £10 million per annum will be required to really rid the country of this problem — the contribution made by way of these levies and the continuation of them is proportionate to the risks involved. Any fair thinking farmer will realise that, like everybody else in the country, people always have to make a contribution in the interests of their own industry.
We have had some problems in the scheme. We have had problems with tags, going back as far as I can remember. The IIRS have done a lot of work on it and I think we have made progress on it. I am pleased that the amount of tag switching that went on in the past has, to all intents and purposes, disappeared. This is because we are able to check back and because of the fact we have perfected a system whereby the advantages in tag switching are not as great as they were in the past.
There has also been increased levels of compensation. I would like to see further revaluation of that, if we are to make progress. There is a social as well as an economic factor involved in the eradication of the disease. I am pleased that in the past 12 months the Department have come to grips with the whole trauma of depopulation. For people who are faced with the dreadful situation that all their animals are taken from them, even if they are not all reactors, the additional compensation is of some benefit. I am suggesting to the Minister and his officers that this part of the scheme should be constantly reviewed to ensure that the fullest possible participation by and cooperation of herd owners would be forthcoming; and one of the ways to do that is to ensure that adequate compensation is available in the event of reactors being discovered.
More emphasis will have to be placed on fencing and on the importance of double fencing. This is an incubating disease. It can strike a herd which has been clear for a long time. It can spread easily through inadequate fences. We have the problem of lateral spread — it is not recognised by many as important, but it is very important — particularly by wildlife and other movement of animals. Animals move more often here than in any other country in Europe. This is a transferable disease, it incubates reasonably quickly and can be transmitted from one animal to another at a frightening pace. However, the levels of disease eradication we have managed to achieve is some recognition of the efforts that have been put in.
I commend the Department on their development of the epidemiology service. Farmers want to know where they have gone wrong, if they have gone wrong. They want to know where the disease has come from, expecially when they have taken all the precautions they consider necessary. When the department get around to installing computers linked up to the various DVOs around the country, that will also make a major contribution to the reduction of the disease levels.
We must also pay a compliment to everybody concerned for the figures we have achieved in the area of brucellosis eradication. I look forward in the new year to the Minister making the necessary order to declare our national herd officially brucellosis free. That would be a major achievement through a scheme which was started because of the widespread economic disaster caused to the owners of herds which were stricken down with brucellosis. The difference between the two diseases is obvious. You can immediately recognise brucellosis; you immediately suffer the economic consequences of an aborted calf and, indeed, of the loss of milk production. For that reason farmers are more aware of that type of disease than they are of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is not a visible disease. Very few animals die of tuberculosis on the farm. But the reality is that, unless our herds achieve the standards required, we will not have a market, particularly in the UK.
There are individual pockets of disease around the country which have concerned me over the last 12 months. There have been outbreaks of disease which nobody could explain. There were outbreaks in west Tipperary and in other parts of the country which we have now come to grips with because through testing we rooted out the cause of the problem. In this regard the new scheme, in spite of its controversial start, has, assisted the Department in having more regular control over the process of testing, the rate of testing and the distribution of testing. Credit must be paid to everybody concerned in this, particularly the farmers who have facilitated the veterinary profession and, indeed, the veterinary profession themselves, who initially had reservations about how this new scheme would work.
From the information available to me on the Animal Health Council I am satisfied that the change was worthwhile. We are now beginning to see the results we wanted. The level of testing is right up to the schedule the Department needed. The number of herds locked up, although a worry, is not unexpected because last year the Department, for financial reasons or otherwise, did not carry out a full round of testing. It is inevitable, when tests are not carried out on a routine basis, when there is still a level of infection around, that the number of reactors initially is likely to be greater than what it would have been if we had continued the full programme of testing.
However, I would be the first to admit that testing is not the full answer to the eradication of the disease. We must have farm control of it, we must be conscious of how quickly it can spread and that testing is only a means of identifying reactors. More work has to be done through the new developments in epidemiology to find out the sources of infection. If we can all put our backs into this problem, and with the Exchequer's funding and the farmers' funding of the programme, then I believe within a reasonable number of years, we could do something about this scourge of tuberculosis which has been with us for so long. It was identified first in the fifties and we realised that, if we did not do something about it, we would not have a market left. For that reason the Department and all concerned who have put so much effort into this have done so for one reason only: to ensure that our national herd remains intact.
Although I know nobody wants to pay additional contributions, I hope that this money will not be begrudged. The sooner we can come to grips with the problem the sooner the whole burden of expenditure on the farmer and on the taxpayer will be lightened, because if the problem is dealt with we would then only be required to carry out controlled testing on a nominal basis every second year or so. But we are still quite a way off from that. I feel that the present speeding-up of the process will have to be continued for at least two or three more years before we can safely say we have identified how the outbreaks of this disease occur. We have climatic conditions in this country which other countries do not have to contend with. We had a disastrous year in farming this year because of the extensive rain and flooding. Coming into this winter and early spring next year animals will be undernourished, probably underfed, and certainly not as disease resistant as they would have been after a sunny year with ample food. Therefore, at the end of the present round of testing it would not surprise me if the incidence of tuberculosis was higher, because it strikes at animals which are not healthy and it tends to ravage through herds which have not had an outbreak for a number of years.
I agree with Senator Hussey in regard to the disposal of reactors. Once reactors are identified it is imperative that they arrive at the factory at the earliest possible opportunity. That will need the cooperation of the farmer, if animals are in calf, and of the DVO, who would be aware of the outbreak. A farmer should be visited the moment a reactor is discovered in his herd so that all the advice necessary to protect himself and his neighbours can be given by the Department and the DVO. I suggest that we should regularise the collection of reactors in some way. We agreed to do it in regard to brucelosis because the number of reactors is smaller. If we could also implement it in the case of tuberculosis reactors it would be a major contribution towards ensuring that the disease would not spread from a reactor herd. There will be problems in that the farmer will have to deal with a named factory, which, possibly, he may feel may not give the best price for reactor cattle in that week. That is the only disadvantage of a centralised collection system. At the moment the farmer has the choice of picking out his own factory and moving the animal himself to the factory giving the best possible price in his area.
The whole problem of disposal of reactors is something we will have to grapple with quickly, because these animals are a source of infection. I hope the farming community will accept this situation, unpalatable and all as it might be. It is in their own interest, in the interest of the national herd and indeed, in the interest of the common good. From a human health point of view, too, it is important that our national herd should be as healthy as possible.
I hope that the regulations will be subject to review if the time comes when this additional income is not required to supplement Exchequer funding. By that time the farmers will have contributed enough to the eradication of the disease. One cannot really be compensated for the loss of good animals which are producing milk and are part of one's herd. Herd owners become attached to animals they have bred themselves. It is important that we all have a responsibility in this area. The farmers, through their losses, have made a major contribution in the past: they have been the only real losers in this whole area of eradication. Anything we can do to help them in that regard would be appreciated. I do not think they will begrudge this increase in the levies if it helps to reduce the incidence of disease from its present national level of 3.6 per cent. If we dig in our heels, ignore the media and do what we have to do as a nation, then our national herd will be the better for it and our own economic situation will be improved as well.
In a year when we have had the most disastrous summer on record, which obviously had a very considerable impact on reducing farm incomes, the Minister of State this evening has brought in a nice additional Christmas box for the farming community. While I have no fundamental argument against the principle of farmer contribution towards the management, marketing and protection of the health of the national herd, this increase should have carried with it some more positive approach from the Minister. After all, it is only five or six months ago, on the Vote for the Department of Agriculture, that the Minister for Agriculture stated that by the end of 1985 he was proposing to halve the levy contribution from the farming community. Instead of fulfilling that promise taken from that bible of the National Coalition Building on Reality— now tattered and torn, pages added in and some taken out — we now have a situation where, once again, you have gone back on your own promises, your own statements and your own commitments.
Further, I consider a two-page statement, in which a Government are going back on their own principle is an insufficient indication to this House why this drastic change of plan was necessary. We do have some statistics in relation to present levels of TB and brucellosis. I, like other speakers, acknowledge the great strides that have been made with regard to the eradication of brucellosis. Instead of blaming the media, as Senator Ferris has done, for highlighting the cost of disease eradication in the context of the contribution by the taxpayer generally, we should not hide a situation where mistakes were made. Any sensible person looking at it would have to say that we did not have a consistent approach to the eradication of tuberculosis in our national herd. For two years we did not do any testing at all.
There is no point in blaming veterinary surgeons, Departmental officials or the press for this. There were other periods when moneys were voted for disease eradication and, large as it may have looked to the taxpayer and to the community at large, it might have been more beneficial if we had looked at this disease once and for all and said: "we will have a five-year plan and get down to the guts of what is wrong and tackle it in a much more streamlined and disciplined way." The character of the operation of the scheme over the last 30 years does not convince me that the political approach towards this disease carried the impact which was necessary. It is clear from the Minister's statement that the improved situation which has operated this year — and I acknowledge this — has detected more animals infected by disease. The incidence of 3.62 per cent is higher than one would have expected but it may be that with the greater intensity in testing we are detecting more animals and removing them more quickly.
I welcome this but if you look back over the period of the last 30 years, how many times did we have this streamlining and disciplined, continued effort between different Governments coming in and out of office? We certainly did not have it. Therefore, I say that we should not cry too much about what the media might say from time to time in relation to the expenditure on this because there were flaws. There are not sufficient funds provided for research into the character and durability of the TB germ. Unlike the bruscella it can live in extremely difficult circumstances for very long periods. A veterinary specialist told me that it could live for as long as two years even in cement. If this is true it indicates its durability and the necessity to have on a continual basis, without interruption, a streamlined, disciplined and co-ordinated effort to deal with the overall situation.
I should like to refer to my original point, that we have a dramatic change of face by the Government and we get no explanation as to why this has happened. Instead of telling us that he is to carry out what he promised last May, the Minister has proposed to increase the amounts of the levies. This perhaps would be acceptable — regrettable though it is in a year which has been devastating for farming — if it incorporated some notion from the Minister as to how he is to spend this money. I have an abhorrence of increases of this kind when we are not made aware what is to happen to the additional money. Is it being sucked back into the Exchequer? Is the Minister going to provide additional aid to the special groups in the farming areas that have been badly hit by the weather conditions with supplemental aid for fodder or what is he now proposing to do with funds which last May were not required? In fact he stated that the amounts needed would be substantially less in 1986 than in 1985? In view of these contradictions and in relation to the bad year we have had, that is a sensible question and it is one which the Minister should answer.
As I have left a meeting to attend this debate and should like to return there, I am making a brief contribution to this debate. I should like the Minister to address himself to the questions I have posed.
Senator Ferris, who is a member of the Animal Health Council, has covered this area very well. I, like the other Members of the House, who have spoken and those who have yet to speak, do not welcome any increase in levies. We all dislike any increases in levies but in the circumstances there is not much that can be done about it. Farmers who have had to suffer the effects of this disease for many years would be happy to continue paying, at least during 1986 and for a few years after that, if they thought that at the end of that time we would have got to grips with the disease and have complete eradication. I have had personal experience of the disease. The greatest loser in this is the farmer. Sentor Ferris pointed this out. Many farmers have lost their livelihoods because of this disease. Most of them, if not all of them, had complied with the regulations down through the years. For some unknown and unexplained reason, this disease can hit herds which have all been reared on the one farm and which have not been bought in. When we make inquiries we cannot get an explanation as to how this happens.
Down through the years we have had all sorts of accusations made: the veterinary surgeons were blamed; the farmers were blamed and the cattle dealers were blamed on a great number of occasions. I do not know who shares the blame. It could never be put fairly and squarely on the shoulders of anybody at any particular time. What matters now is the future.
The Minister and the Government have taken a positive step within the past 12 months to get to grips with this problem. Speaking as a herd owner, I would not mind paying disease levies if I felt there was some light at the end of the tunnel. Down through the years we have had reasons put forward why we were not getting to grips, with the problems. There were veterinary strikes. Cattle move three, four or five times from farm to farm during their lifetime. This happens more often in this country than in any other country in the EEC. Herdowners have another axe to grind, which is the level of compensation for cattle. This was rectified to a certain extent but not necessarily for the younger stock. While progress has been made in relation to compensation, it is still not adequate.
Debate adjourned.