I move:
That Seanad Éireann approves the following Regulations in draft:
Bovine Diseases (Levies) Regulations, 1989
copies of which were laid in draft before the Seanad on 6 November 1989.
Bovine Diseases (Levies) Regulations, 1989: Motion.
The proposed regulations have been made on the Bovine Diseases (Levies) Act, 1979. Their purpose is to secure an increased financial contribution from the farming sector towards the cost of the bovine TB and brucellosis eradication schemes. This increase in the rates of levy is fully supported by the farming organisations. The rates of reactor grant under the disease eradication schemes were originally revised as and from 1 February 1989 and the adjustments at that time were made on the basis that ERAD could continue to operate within its budgetary allocation.
However, an analysis carried out some months later showed clearly that the rates then fixed had, for certain categories of animals, fallen seriously out of line with their market value. It became clear that farmer dissatisfaction with the level of reactor compensation would be a serious impediment to progress on disease eradication. The ERAD board, therefore, recommended a fresh adjustment of the rates of grant and that the increases be borne jointly by the Exchequer and the farming community. The farm organisations agreed to support an increase in the bovine diseases levies and thereby fund their share of the increased grants. The new rates of levy from 1 December will be 1.2 pence per gallon of milk processed and £6.90 per bovine animal slaughtered or exported live. The expected yield from the levy this year is £21.4 million.
The proceeds from the increased levy will be used to finance the increased reactor and depopulation grants as well as the new income supplement introduced as and from 1 February 1989. The increased reactor grants will be concentrated on the small to medium-size animals where it is generally accepted that the greatest need for increased compensation existed. The special income supplement will apply in situations where total depopulation of the herd is not justified but where disease breakdown still results in the removal of more than ten per cent of animals from the herd. Payment of the supplement will be confined to herds of 100 or fewer animals and I think it will be a very effective measure in easing hardship suffered by individual farmers. Expenditure on grants paid to farmers is expected to come to about £16 million during this year.
I think it is recognised that the establishment of ERAD has proved to be a successful initiative involving all interested parties to provide a new approach to the disease eradication schemes. Targets set for ERAD entail the halving of the existing bovine TB levels over four years and a more intensive and sharply focused programme is being put in place. A full round of testing of the national herd is being carried out in 1989 together with special concentration on the 15,000 herd which pose the greatest disease risk not just to themselves but to all other herds.
The strategy involves paying particular attention to the geographic location with a concentration of high risk herds. These are designated as black spot areas. I believe that the increase in the level of compensation announced by the board of ERAD in May 1989 and backdated to 1 February 1989 means that herd owners will be adequately compensated for losses because of a disease breakdown and that ERAD will be greatly assisted in meeting its objective as a result of the new grant structure. The package represents concrete evidence of the commitment of the farming community and the Government to the success of the initiative in setting up ERAD. What is now required is an all out effort on the part of all concerned towards insuring that the targets set for the reduction for bovine TB levels are achieved.
Is it possible to have copies of the Minister's speech, please.
I understand copies have been requested, Senator.
The lack of progress in the eradication of tuberculosis is one of the great scandals of our time. It started in 1954 and 12 years later I had the honour of being invited to a function by the Minister for Agriculture who is the present Taoiseach. The purpose of the function was to celebrate the eradication of bovine tuberculosis. Twenty three years later and a couple of hundred million pounds later we still have tuberculosis. I am interested in the Minister's figures because I was on to his office this morning about the costs in 1987. The total cost up to 1987 has been £423 million. The figures for 1988 were as follows:— vets' fees £14.4 million, compensation to farmers £7.6 million and administrative costs £6.5 million making a total of £28.5 million.
My figure on levies from farmers differs slightly from that given by the Minister. The figure I got from his Department was £22.7 million. There is not a big difference but I am just making the point. The actual net cost to the taxpayer is pretty low when you take into account the value of the animals to the Department when they were being disposed of. Nevertheless, the real problem is that we are putting at risk our good markets for beef and unless we get our act together and eradicate tuberculosis I am afraid we might be excluded from certain markets which we now have.
If we contrast the failure in tuberculosis with the success of the eradication of brucellosis, it makes very interesting history. In point of fact we do not have the basic fundamental knowledge on how tuberculosis is spread. We do have it for brucellosis and it was got very simply by a few scientists in Moorepark who showed quite clearly that the spread of brucellosis only occurred at time of parturition or at time of abortion and that isolating the animal for about 14 days would keep the infection from getting to the rest of the herd. That basic piece of knowledge helped us to eradicate brucellosis. We do not have that kind of information for tuberculosis and despite the best efforts of many of us to get basic research done on how tuberculosis is spread I am afraid we met a blank wall. The Department of Agriculture and particularly the vets in that section resisted any research being done in the Agricultural Institute into how tuberculosis is spread.
We have other problems, in particular the ear tagging problem. It is so easy to get rid of the ear tag, or to change the ear tag, and I am afraid there are people doing this. Really if we want to get sophisticated about this job we should insert in each animal a little microchip under the skin which cannot be removed and the animal could be identified at any sale point by simply running it through a cattle grid and having a scanner there to identify the animal. I am also amazed that in this era of information technology we still deal with the whole tuberculosis situation by mountains of paper and files piled upon files. That information could be put on computers which would be much more efficient and would give us a better chance of knowing what the history of the animal was and it would prevent the changing of ear tags. There is little point in recriminating about this sad saga. Everybody shares the blame in some way or other, everybody related to the subject, but the primary responsibility must rest with the Department of Agriculture. The farming organisations certainly did not do enough either to point out the few bad apples among them and certainly if the levies keep going like this the farmers will soon be paying for the entire programme and still running the risk of having a big loss of income if they have reactors in their herd.
I support the additional levy but in doing so I would hope that there would be some change of procedure in the work of eradicating tuberculosis. As I said at the beginning it is a national scandal. It has cost the taxpayer an enormous amount of money and it is putting our markets at risk for the future.
I agree with many of the sentiments expressed by Senator Raftery regarding the progress being made in the eradication of bovine TB and brucellosis. This has been going on for a long, long time and we have the same criticisms, the same discussions every so often and we still do not seem to be making the desired progress. The regulations proposed will impose further hardship on farmers who are already very hard pressed because of the depressed state of the beef trade. We all know that the profit margin for this year for beef farmers is nil and it is depressing for farmers to see those levies being increased still further. In fact, there are many farmers losing money at present on cattle purchased last spring. Farmers expected when the APS scheme was introduced that prices would improve but instead of that they started to drop back by 1p and 2p per pound at the factories. Indeed the same happened when the Minister negotiated a higher quota for intervention and I wonder if the factories have filled that quota.
At present there is a glut of cattle coming onto the market with farmers queuing outside the mart gates from 3 a.m. and in some cases having to transport their cattle back home again because the marts cannot accommodate the large numbers. This, of course, is additional hardship and expense on farmers and I am convinced that the factories are not paying the price they should be paying for beef. Nobody seems to be able to take them on. They know they will get their own way in the end if they wait long enough because farmers will eventually have to sell their cattle.
I accept that the levies proposed are necessary to finance the cost of disease eradication. The biggest items would be the fees paid to veterinary practitioners for testing and reactor and de-population grants for the farmers. Are we going to continue to increase those levies each time we need additional moneys for the disease eradication programme? There is a limit on what farmers can bear and certainly we must be very near that limit this year when cattle farmers are accepting less for their cattle than they paid for them last spring. The disease eradication programme to date has cost in the region of £1,000 million and still we have not got the disease down to an acceptable level. In fact, the incidence of disease is higher now in certain areas than it was 30 years ago. When there is a bad breakdown in an area, more research should be done into the cause of that breakdown. There must be a reason for it and it is not enough to eliminate the diseased animals.
The root cause of the disease must be eliminated whether it be badgers, birds, bad fences or whatever. A thorough investigation should take place to find out the cause of the outbreak. It is not enough for departmental officials to come along and tell farmers to disinfect their stables. I would like to see more time and money being spent on research. If the cause of the disease can be pinpointed then it is money well spent.
A full round of testing was carried out in 1989 and that was a very good thing because that is the only way that you will come to grips with this problem of disease eradication. I wonder will this full round be continued in 1990 and in successive years? Perhaps the Minister when he is replying will be able to give us some information on that.
At the present time the price being paid for small animals is not sufficient and any farmer who has the misfortune of having a number of such animals turned down in the test is losing a considerable amount of money. I understand that some of this money we are providing today under those levies will go towards increasing the grants for those animals. I would certainly like that to happen because I have seen so many cases of farmers losing a considerable amount of money on those animals. It is hard to compensate farmers who have the misfortune of having their herds closed down because of the incidence of TB or brucellosis. Their whole livelihood is gone and in many cases they have to wait a couple of years before they can get their herds free again. This creates considerable hardship for them.
I hope that ERAD, which is the new body looking after this programme, will make great strides in the years ahead in eliminating this disease once and for all. Our beef is the pride of Europe and we should do everything possible to try to preserve it and to preserve its good name. People who are found switching tags or doing whatever else that is being done should be brought to justice because it is very serious to have that type of thing going on at a time when we are trying to promote our beef and our cattle in the European market and when we are up against such great competition from other countries where the incidence of disease is much lower than it is here.
I hope we will see considerable progress being made in the eradication of bovine TB and brucellosis in the year ahead and I hope it is the last time the Minister will have to come to this House or to the other House looking for an increase in this levy because farmers have to pay considerable levies at present. There are the veterinary levies, the CBF levy, the IFA levy, the disease earadication levy and insurance. All those things have to be paid for. They are all deducted from the price the farmer gets for his stock. I hope it is the last time the Minister will have to come here looking for an increase in those levies.
Before I get down to the motion before us, I would like to say that I am appalled by the casual way the Minister is treating the House. He arrived 20 or 25 minutes late. It may not have been his fault; I accept he was possibly held up on the Order of Business — we have had that explanation — but there is something appallingly wrong with the procedure when this House can be kept waiting for 20 or 25 minutes and when it suits another Chamber in this House a Minister will arrive. If we are to be relevant and if we are to answer the criticisms the public are directing at this House, if we are serious about the reform of this House, we should get on with the business according to the Order Paper of the day. That needs an immediate explanation to this House.
I also feel it to be of extreme casualness that we do even have copies of the Minister's speech. Having spent time in the other House I know that was the number one requirement. When a Minister came into the House he had the courtesy to distribute to the House, particularly when he was issuing figures such as the Minister has issued here this morning, copies of that speech so that people could see exactly the case he was putting forward.
Hear, hear.
I am not being personal in regard to the Minister here but I find both of those incidents to be unacceptable to the general running of this House. I for one will not tolerate any slipshod practices that will continue to bring this House into disrepute.
I have had an interest for many years in the whole area of bovine diseases. I suppose initially my interest was caught from my scientific training, even though politics soon took over from science as my main interest in life outside the most onerous one of running a household and looking after my family. I have spoken many times on bovine diseases. I cannot recall how many times but it is at least my fourth if not my fifth time in different fora to address this particular topic.
I have said before that a price cannot be put on the importance of TB-free status as well as brucellosis-free status. We can almost claim the brucellosis-free status, but a price cannot be put on TB-free status for this country. We are an agricultural country, we are a net exporting country. Our cattle, dairy and milk produce generally is of the utmost importance to our GNP and to our exports. We are about to debate the NESC report and if we look to the place we will be taking in Europe and the importance that Ireland will hold around the Community table where we can shine in Europe, it is in this area where we can claim natural advantage in the area of agriculture and we should be at the top of the list.
Senator Raftery mentioned hundreds of millions of pounds; others have talked of £400 million since 1935 as the cost of eradicating TB in this country. It is a national scandal, it is an appalling scandal. Successive Governments have contributed to this scandal. The real figure is, in fact, over £1 billion if you translate into today's terms the money that has been spent over the years. For a long time it was taxpayers' money. More recently the farmers have been paying more and more of it themselves as well as the processing industries. It is appalling that £1 billion has been spent and 35 years later we are still effectively hardly any further down the road in eradicating TB. We need explanations from the Minister for this. His two page report does little justice to this important topic. I have just been checking the contributions other Minister gave and they go on for pages.
We can take a quantum leap forward to a year or so ago when the ERAD board was established. I would have preferred if the Minister could have dwelt on the progress made by ERAD since they were established. I held out great hope for ERAD and I still do. I would like to know in detail from the Minister as to what progress they have made. What, for example, is the method they are using for recording the level of TB in our herds? Are they using the prevalence of TB, are they using the incidence of TB, are they using the number of animals per 100, the number of animals per 1,000? There are five or six possible ways of recording the levels of TB. Certainly last spring there was a lot of work going on in relation to the type of method of recording that ERAD would use so that at least we can know how bad the problem is or whether the problem is improving. Over the years the Department of Agriculture have used in some years the incidence of TB to tell the country the level of the disease. Then they switched to the prevalence of TB. To the unitiated, including me, at the time, the two words were almost interchangeable but they are not interchangeable scientifically or when it comes to recording levels of TB.
One of the first tasks that the new chairman of the ERAD board set himself was to take a dipstick, if you like, of the exact problem, of the exact situation, as of last spring or as of this year, and use that as a baseline and from there on measured the increase or decrease in TB levels from that base level. I would like to know from the Minister has that been done and what method we are going to use from now on of actually recording the levels of TB so that we ourselves can know and so that the market to which we export our excellent meat products can know whether our situation is improving or disimproving.
ERAD was launched with a great blaze of publicity. I must say, as an aside and on a lighter note, I was not a great admirer of those dreadful TV commercials they ran, at this line of faces in the agricultural community issuing fairly inane sentences one after the other. I think, to be fair to them, they are not too proud of it themselves, in hindsight. They have come in for quite a lot of criticism. I believe in publicity, in PR. We have an enormous job to do in awakening farmers and raising their consciousness to the importance of full co-operation from all sectors in eradicating TB.
The farmers cannot be the only people to blame in the length of time it has taken to reduce TB levels to an acceptable incidence or prevalence in this country. After all, the farming community cooperated perfectly in the eradication of brucellosis. The very same farmers understood from the word "go" the importance of eradicating brucellosis. It is an easier disease to eliminate. Senator Raftery has referred to it. The test is specific; the TB test is not. It is really only a herd test, it is really only a screen test.
Farmers could not see at first hand the damage it was doing. If you had a cow aborting you had the loss of the calf and you had the disease. You understood economically the impact for you, if not for the community, of the disease. TB is harder for the farmer to understand in pounds, shillings and pence, straight up at face value, as it were. An animal will survive with TB; it will not thrive. You will not get the returns or the weight gain; but your animal is there and you are not losing your calf. The impact is not as obvious as it was with brucellosis.
The farming community need to be educated and to have their consciousness raised to the importance of everyone co-operating. I believe they are co-operating now. I believe you should have the carrot there of fair and just reactor compensation, particularly, as the former speaker mentioned, for the weanlings. For a long time the dairy cows and weanlings were just not being compensated for sufficiently to really induce farmers to be 100 per cent co-operative with the eradication programme.
Tags have been mentioned, too. There is no doubt that there is tag switching. There has always been tag switching. But there was tag switching in other countries. There was tag switching in the North of Ireland, where they managed to eradicate TB and are down to an incidence of .004 per cent in the herd. What is so different about the régime that was operated in the North of Ireland, just 80 miles up the coast, from what we are doing in this country? What is the difference with the farming practice in the North that they could eradicate TB and we here have not been able to do it 35 years and a billion pounds later?
There are some differences in farming practices. They do not shift their animals around from calf to beef stage as much as we do. I am not sure whether the figure is five or six change of hands, but it is somewhere around that in the Republic, from the time the calf is dropped on the west coast to the time it is slaughtered, perhaps in the factory on the east coast. He is sold as a calf. He is then sold later on as a yearling, as a light store, as a forward store. He is perhaps put into a winter fattening unit somewhere else. He may be finished off and grasped by a further farmer and then finally slaughtered. The enormous movement on each individual bovine in this country is a problem in terms of handling it. But I cannot imagine that the farming practices in the North are that terribly different from down here. Our farming practices here are different from continental Europe in many ways and they have managed to eradicate TB or reduce it to an acceptable incidence.
We must look at this again, as to why we have failed for so long and at such a cost to get this scandal under control when it is of such importance to our economy. I mentioned the tags. Yes, tags are switched, but they were switched elsewhere too and they managed to overcome that. I support Senator Raftery that we must seriously consider electronic tagging. It will be coming; it is only a matter of time. Can we not be ahead of the posse? Can we not lead Europe in this area where, God knows, we should have the experience and the expertise, as we have handled animals for so many aeons at this stage. Electronic tagging will come; it is just a matter of when.
May I ask the Minister what is the present level of investigation and research into this, because I do know if it is being looked at in his Department and by ERAD and I would love him to tell us what the present state of play is in relation to this. By the way, it is not only in relation to cattle but I believe in relation to horses and dogs that they are also considering electronic tagging — and very important it would be, too.
ERAD have decided in their wisdom — and they have done a lot of good — some time ago, as part of their tightening up of the practices in this whole area, that any animal that arrives at a factory or a mart with his tag missing would be sent straight back to the herd from whence it came. I do not know what flash of genius brought this to their mind, because, quite frankly, you can load cattle in a farmyard check, the ear tags against the card — we used to call it the blue card; they are pink cards now but they are still referred to as blue cards in the farming community — against the blue card, check each individual beast onto the lorry and trailer with their tag in place and their card correct. You hand the card to the lorry driver and you can drive ten, 20, 50 miles to the nearest factory, let down the ramp, check the cattle off the ramp and there can be one or two tags missing. That is a fact. Apart from deliberate tampering, the quality of the tag we use is causing problems. I know there is an investigation into this. We try different tags. We are using tags that are not produced in Ireland, to my knowledge, which is a scandal in itself. There surely is an import substitution product there to be look at. I know that tags are being produced in Ireland, but apparently the Department do not consider them satisfactory. If I can be parochial, there are tags being produced in Wexford that the Department of Agriculture and Food do not consider suitable. I think Nigeria and six or eight continental European countries use Wexford produced tags, but they are not good enough for Irish cattle. A question needs to be answered there, but that is another day's work, if you like.
The very fact that a tag can be lost from the beast, without any tampering, from the farmyard to the factory, is an accepted fact in handling animals and in the practice of handling animals. ERAD have decided in their wisdom that that animal cannot be slaughtered. Technically, they are correct under the legislation, because you cannot slaughter cattle unless you can identify them positively, according to the legislation. What have they decided to do — that the farmer must bring that one beast without his tag back to the herd, having perhaps mingled with other animals at the factory, with other infected animals at the factory. He could bring a clean animal back to his clean herd and introduce infection into his herd.
This came to my notice some six months ago in a rather dramatic way when a pedigree herd owner — he has one of the top pedigree herds in the country — had a wagon of animals going to the factory and one of them had lost the tag when it got there. When the veterinary inspector insisted that that animal minus his tag go back to his pedigree herd, which is of international satus — he can command what he likes for the animal — he refused to take the animal back from a potentially infected premises to his own herd. He was being told by the veterinary officers and inspectors: you must, under the law, bring back that animal regardless of whether it is being infected on these premises or not. There was an appalling row. This man approached the chairman of ERAD; he approached all of us who were interested in this topic at the time. The outcome of it all was that he refused to take it back. He sent it down to an isolated stable he had about three miles down the road and left it there while the row raged. ERAD looked at this problem and said, "Yes, we understand what you are saying. We understand what you are giving out about, but as the law stands you cannot slaughter an animal unless you can positively identify if. If it does not have a tag you cannot identify it and you cannot slaughter it. Take it home with you. We do not want to know".
ERAD are charged with eradicating TB and surely any practice that might contribute in any way to the spread of TB should not be part of their brief. Right now, the compromise that has been arranged is that that animal, or such an animal, may go to the local pound until the issue is tested again, identified, or retagged, or gets a permit, or whatever is going to happen to him. That is just one area that took weeks of hassle to resolve and made little sense to those of us perhaps on the field watching and those of us who care passionately about eradicating TB.
Could the Minister also add to his brief contribution and expand on what is going on at the moment in the epidemiological unit of ERAD. This is an area where, again, we were appallingly negligent for 33 of the last 35 years when we were trying to eradicate TB. It is an area that may be as much an art as it is a science. This is the problem in relation to epidemiology generally. We have had the controversy over the badger. It raged long and hard around Offaly and Longford coming up to elections. Farmers were threatening not to co-operate with the annual round test and the TB test. There were lots of problems, lots of passions, farmers have lost so much money when herds were locked up. The tightening up of the regime has had at least impacted economically, but it has meant that, where they could not proceed along the lines they felt they should to help themselves to resolve their problem, frustration boiled over.
Licences are being issued to test badgers as carriers of TB. The wildlife people are watching very vigilantly what the Department of Agriculture and Food and ERAD do in this area. I can understand it. But there is a common sense somewhere down the middle of the line. A badger infected with TB is little good to himself or to his own comrades. In fact, they lose weight. They usually die of starvation or, because they are slow to react and are malingering generally you see them killed along th side of the roads in ever-increasing numbers. It is in the interests of both wildlife as well as the huge economic interest of eradicating bovine TB that we finally establish whether or not the badger is a carrier of TB and is responsible for what we have been calling spontaneous outbreaks of TB, which apparently have occurred inexplicably around the country for so many years.
There are other areas in relation to epidemiology. I would ask the Minister perhaps if he could give us a full brief as to what is going on in this particular unit that is being set up in ERAD, how they are handling applications for the testing of badgers, why some counties can get licences while others cannot and what is the relationship with the wildlife people at the moment — just generally how we are handling what is the delicate area of this whole issue.
I referred to spontaneous outbreaks. I do not know if there can be such a thing as a spontaneous outbreak. I do not have enough knowledge to comment on it. Where you have a farmer who has bred all his own replacements for years, who never buys in, whose hygiene and disinfection standards are absolutely meticulous, where he has double fencing between himself and his neighbouring farmer so there can be no contact or contagious passing of the disease, and how suddenly, having been clear of TB for 20 years, he can suddenly go down on his annual herd test, that is what we refer to as a spontaneous outbreak. I have a feeling that these particular outbreaks are where we can learn most from. If we could really concentrate our resources on these so-called spontaneous outbreaks we could eliminate so many factors as the possible cause in these situations that surely we could get a lead and surely there is a lot more to be told from that story. Perhaps the epidemiological unit is looking on these and perhaps the Minister could have something more to say to us on it.
We have had over the years report heaped upon report in relation to the eradication of bovine diseases, particularly bovine TB. We have had the Committee of Public Expenditure and ESRI and the various veterinary bodies. We have had the farm organisations. We all have copies of these reports. My own party produced an excellent report in March 1988 in relation to the eradication of bovine TB and many others have done so also.
Looking at the overall picture, one wonders where do we go from here. I would ask the Minister to give us a detailed account of the present operations and the present programmes under way in ERAD. Could he indicate to us where the TB eradication programme now differs from what was in place before ERAD was formed? If we could have a comprehensive report from the Minister it would make all our jobs of selling the increased levy, the increased pence per gallon and the increased pounds per animal slaughtered now being charged to the farmer a much easier job to sell. We will get far greater co-operation from all aspects of the farming community, from the milk and cattle men, if they understand exactly that progress is being made and that at last we are on the road to reducing our incidence, our prevalence, or whatever the Minister will tell me is the method of recording the disease now, to acceptable levels.
I would like the Minister to indicate whether there has been an increase in black spots, what the reason for this might be or what he is being advised is the reason for this. Counties Longford and Cork and various other areas have a tradition of being known to be black spots.
I ask the Minister why calves from infected herds, from locked-up herds, can still be sold freely through the marts or directly into clean herds that are not locked up. Surely a 12-year-old could understand that a major source of reinfection and primary infection is the free travel of calves from infected herds to clean herds. I agree there is a logistical problem on how you will handle that, but what is ERAD doing about it? Be it general hygiene on the farm, fencing, proper testing, proper animal management generally, the passage of calves throughout the country freely from infected herds must be the major source of infection left untouched by ERAD or by the Department of Agriculture. What is the Minister going to do about it? No matter what money you take in levies off farmers, no matter what money you spend on testing and establishing clean herds, the farmer legally is free to go to the mart and buy any number of calves, bring them home and they could be from any infected herd in the country. That is madness. What can we do? How did other countries handle that? How did countries who have virtually eradicated TB handle that? Can we not piggy-back on the experiences of other countries? Can we not learn from their success in this area?
Perhaps the Minister could indicate for the record also when the latest round of increases in reactor grants will date from. I have at the back of my mind February or March or some time in 1989. Again, to get full co-operation, particularly in depopulation, or where the figures do not warrant depopulation in the supplementary income payments, it is important to know when they are going to date from, because there has been a vigorous action on the ground by ERAD; and in many cases, particularly in relation to brucellosis — and rightly so — we have been depopulating far more earnestly than heretofore. The carrot of knowing they will get some compensation or some payment to keep them going throughout the period when they will not have an income from their farm will indeed prevent the stick having to be used on farmers who are in difficulties in this area.
With regard to the actual test itself, could the Minister tell the House where the serum that is now being used is sourced? Over the years we have used Dutch top and Rotterdam bottom or British top and Rotterdam bottom or Dutch top and bottom or British top and bottom. They switched the source of the serum to, I suppose, wherever it was cheapest or wherever supply could be got. The Department switched the source of the serum used on the TB test apparently without any scientific reasons for doing so. I was not aware at any stage that the efficacy of the actual serum was ever tested or graphed and yet the whole procedure continued the same regardless of the source of the serum. Perhaps that is scientifically correct. I would feel that when you source serum differently that as the test of the size of the lump between the two spots on the neck of the animal is a comparative analysis - if I can be totally unscientific in the description of how you read the test — it is very important that the strength and the source of the serum be fully taken into account.
Before ERAD came onstream there was a lot of hassle with inconclusives and false positives and other such categories, where there was an objective analysis as to whether the animal was up or down when it came to reading the test. Apart from that, there was indeed — let us be honest — some slipshod behaviour in terms of the vets reading the test. There was a difficulty there. A farmer has a particular relationship with his veterinary surgeon. He depends on the vet to get out of bed at 3 o'clock in the morning if he has difficulty with an animal calving. He depends on a quick response and a good service from a vet when he has other animals in trouble. The vet is beholden to that farmer every year for a large part of his income and to get the cheque regularly, annually or monthly or whenever he can get it from the farmer. There is a personal relationship rather like a doctor/patient relationship that builds up between most farmers and their vets. Most vets will be acutely aware of a particular farmer's economic situation. If the farmer has a wife and ten children and a large overdraft in the bank, the natural tendency was to give him the benefit of the doubt when it came to an inconclusive. I know that sort of attitude has changed with ERAD. Perhaps the Minister could indicate to us exactly what the tightening up has been on reading and carrying out the test.
Could the Minister also indicate whether there has been an increase in the number of post-mortems being carried out since the advent of ERAD? What exactly are the post-mortems now telling us? Are they inconclusives? I believe all inconclusives are now being slaughtered and that there is no benefit of the doubt. I am open to correction in saying that. Post-mortems are histological examinations of these inconclusives, on lesions and so on. What is that showing us? What percentage of post-mortems are showing that inconclusives could nearly have gone to the false positive category — in other words, that they did not have TB even though there was a question mark over the test when it was being read. Have we increased the number of slides we are doing on lesions at factories and points of slaughter? If so, what is that telling us in terms of the disease and its spread around the country? Are we learning any more from more scientific evaluation at the point of slaughter and, if not, why?
We are now talking to a motion in relation to increasing the levy to I think — I still have not got a copy of the Minister's speech — 1.2p per gallon of milk and to £6.90 per animal. The Minister says that will bring in £21.4 million per annum from the farmers' contribution to bovine disease eradication. By comparing those figures with the last figures I have on record, that has increased from 1.1p to 1.2p per gallon, which is a moderate increase, and from £6.50 to £6.90 per animal slaughtered. The previous figures were to realise £19.4 million. Today's figure is £21.4 million. I think it was Senator Raftery who said that those figures we have on record do not quite tally with the figures being given by the Department for 1987. That is understandable because it has to be an estimate. We do not quite know in any one year how many animals will be slaughtered. We should know virtually to the gallon how much milk we will have processed in this country. Perhaps the Minister could explain the reason for the slight difference. It is only £2 million, but £2 million is a lot when you consider the budget of ERAD and the job that has to be done. If we are £2 million out each year perhaps we need to tailor more specifically the amount of money we raise in this area.
I urge the Minister to be specific in the answers to the questions we have raised. He did not compose his speech. I know that from having at one stage sat over in that chair on different issues. The speech did very little justice to the importance of the topic we are discussing. Bovine Disease Levies Regulations, 1989, seem fairly innocuous, but behind that is a huge industry that is of enormous importance to the farmers, processors and meat factories and which has enormous value from an export point of view. Facing into 1992 and beyond, this is an area in which I feel, if we can get our health certification right, we can stand up in Europe and say we are TB free in the accepted sense of that word. Then there is an enormous future to expand even further from a point of producing beef from grass where we have most natural advantage in this country.
May I take the opportunity of apologising to the Seanad for any misunderstanding which has arisen this morning? We had a delay on the Order of Business and, as Senator Doyle from her time in the other House will appreciate, it creates its own problems. There was absolutely no slight intended to the Seanad in relation to this. There are obvious difficulties when the Order of Business tends to drift on a bit. In case any Senator should feel offended, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise. My colleague, Deputy Joe Walsh, will take over and reply to the points the speakers have made.
Thank you, Minister.
I welcome the Minister's statement and fully accept what he has said. I will also do the House the honour of being quite specific in regard to the Progressive Democrats' attitude to these regulations, that is to say that we welcome them.
You opposed it the last time.
I am quite prepared to speak for myself and my party.
The road to Damascus.
I was going to agree with you in a lot of what you have said; I might now reconsider my position. I think there is very little point in dwelling on history and we have had quite a lot of that this morning. I agree with many of the things which were said by the previous speakers but I think the central question here is that the farmers are contributing something of the order of £25 million to disease eradication and they are entitled to see that they get value for that investment. It would be widely accepted that progress in TB eradication has been poor. Blame can be put for that on many areas — within the Department itself through the action of successive Governments; the veterinary profession may have some things to answer; and indeed farmers themselves would concede that all has not been well.
In terms of this year's activities of ERAD and I note from the Minister's speech — I had the advantage of hearing it and I realise Senator Doyle may not have seen it — that it was recognised that the establishment of ERAD had provided a successful initiative. I would share that view. I think ERAD has been doing a good job. It has two more years in which to build on the basis it has laid and I hope it can achieve that. It must be a matter of some concern that, when the single market is introduced, our disease status would be up to proper European standards.
In relation to some of the aspects of why the disease has or has not been successfully dealt with, I take Senator Doyle's point about the problem of movement of animals. That has been a major problem. Senator Doyle referred to the situation in Northern Ireland and to the fact that things would appear to be a lot better there. For the Minister's consideration I would like to say that there is a computerised system in the Department in Northern Ireland where they can track the movement of animals. That is something that would be of major benefit here, because undoubtedly the way in which cattle are transferred between farms, from farms to marts and factories, is a major element in our lack of progress in controlling the disease. I understand that this year the number of reactors is likely to be 42,000 per annum, having been at a level of 28,000 to 30,000 for the past ten to 15 years. That indicates either that the testing is more successful or that the problem is getting worse. We do look to ERAD to make progress in reducing that figure. I must also say that it has appeared in the past that where the money was available to control the disease a simple calculation was done in dividing the amount of money by the number of animals and then coming up with a figure. If that is the case we are faced with a problem this year if the figure is 42,000.
I welcome the measures that have been taken in relation to increasing the level of compensation for animals. It would appear that within certain categories of animal the compensation being paid is somewhat more than the market value of those animals and there may be funds available from that source to pay for the additional reactors that are coming through the system this year.
There is no question whatsoever but that farmers have experienced considerable hardship over the years when it came to having reactor cattle. I have personal experience of the matter myself and it is only where a farmer is in beef that the compensation levels were nearly adequate to pay for the animal, but there are certainly cases within the country of farm families who experienced major hardship, major difficulty, because of their commitment to disease eradication while some of their neighbours who are less committed appear to get away very much more easily. The State has a commitment to see to it that the people who participate fully in the scheme, who are law abiding and who present their animals properly are looked after in the event that those animals become reactors.
One thing that should be referred to is the fact that the veterinary fees are to increase by over 14½ per cent this year, adding £1.4 million to the cost of the scheme. In a year which has already been referred to, where cattle farmers have experienced such difficulty at the backend of the year, and where farm incomes are of course going to suffer very significantly that would appear to be a very generous offering to the veterinary profession. That is not to say that they may not deserve it.
In terms of the question of black spots, the ERAD studies themselves would show pretty conclusively that the badger is a major element in the spread of the disease. Obviously, a lot more work needs to be done in that respect. We are sensitive to the needs of the environment and we would not suggest that badgers should be eradicated, but I do think that there is a case in certain areas for this to happen. We all know of the situation in Offaly where it was pretty conclusive that the badger was a serious and major element in the spread of the disease. For those who are sensitive to the future and welfare of those animals, if badgers have TB they are going to die a very lingering and painful death and it may be preferable in certain cases to remove them. I am concerned about badgers but I am more concerned about farmers. Farmers, contributing so much to the scheme, must have a say in it. The test is only as good as the way it is administered.
Again, figures which were published in recent weeks to show that veterinary inspectors within the Department were uncovering far more reactors than were private practitioners, would indicate that there are deficiencies in administering the test. I take the point made earlier, that it is very understandable that a veterinary surgeon who has a long and established relationship with a client would tend to take, in all good faith, a more lenient view than someone who is an outsider. That is not to say which of those two parties is right in their assessment of the disease.
In conclusion, we say that in general terms we welcome this proposal.
First, I would like to say that in common with the other Senators who have spoken, I accept the apology given by the previous occupant of that Chair, Minister Séamus Kirk, with regard to the fact that he was detained unavoidably in the other House. I think, however, that it is unacceptable that we do not get, at the beginning of the debate, copies of the Minister's speech because I myself was involved in discussions in another part of this building and wished to have the opportunity of reading the Minister's script which I could do quickly as I am a speed reader. It is important that we have this information.
I would also like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that a large number of the television monitors in this building are not working. This means that it is quite difficult to follow the proceedings in the Seanad. I would like to ask that this matter be urgently attended to.
There is something wonderfully appropriate in this debate being taken in this building and, if I may say so, in the fact that I, although a city dweller, should participate in it, because I look out the window and I see the beautiful columns of the National Library in which, according to the imagination of James Joyce, his character Stephen Dedalus surprised Cranley in perusing a tome entitled Diseases of Ox. Joyce regarded this as quite an entertaining incident but I think that we, as public representatives, are aware of the fact that the situation with regard particularly to bovine TB is no longer a national joke. It is far more in the line of a national scandal. I would like to say that I, as a city dweller, found the contribution in particular of Senator Avril Doyle to be brilliant, incisive and educational from my point of view and I am very glad that I was privileged to be here and to have had the opportunity of informing myself with regard to this matter.
I would like, again as a city dweller, somebody who does not have a background in either science or in farming but who is a taxpayer, to place on the record of the Houses, my concern at what is clearly a scandalous waste over many years of taxpayers' money. I welcome the fact that this in any vindictive way but do not say this in any vindictive way but I believe that it is the best way of ensuring that they will act as a control mechanism on the veterinary profession. Let us not be too polite about it. Most people in this country suspect, and many believe strongly as I do, that the TB eradication scheme over 20, 30 or 40 years has been the single biggest racket in this country, that it was skilfully manipulated in order to milk taxpayers' money. Of course it is possible to eradicate TB. It was done in a human population by a great Minister and former Member of this House, Dr. Noel Browne; but then he was determined to do it and there was no money in frustrating the implementation of the scheme he so brilliantly administered.
I would like to move from a situation where the Minister at the end of his script speaks about targets for the reduction of TB. A target which is simply reduction, is no use because I have watched over a number of years as an outsider, as an amateur, situations where the eradication seemed to be closing in and we had fewer areas of the country seriously infected, and then suddenly the genie is let out of the bag again and it appears to be on the increase.
I have to ask why this is? It is not just a kind of collusion by the veterinary profession. There are clearly, as Senator Doyle and others have indicated, areas where the procedures need to be tightened up. The obvious one that occurred to me during the contributions of Senators Doyle and Dardis was the movement, the transport of cattle. I believe that there should be some attempt at the regulation of the transport of cattle. I also believe it is very important that the veterinary profession get a signal that Irish people no longer are prepared to provide a source of income for them in the long term. An end must be brought to this situation.
The point made by Senator Doyle was an effective and important one when she raised the question of 1992. She referred to it marginally and in passing. Beef exports from this country are an extremely important source of revenue. They even appear to have an effect, I would think a distorting effect, upon issues such as our foreign policy. It is clear that the Government give considerable importance to the export of beef. We are moving towards the completion of the internal market. If we do not have a largely TB-free stock of cattle then I believe our export of beef is going to be in trouble. This is a major reason why all of us from whatever background, even those like myself who have little background in either science or farming, should be concerned and should be prepared to speak out on this issue.
Of course one has sympathy with the human tragedy that sometimes lies behind infection in cattle herds, not just bovine TB or brucellosis. There was a case in the last year of a man whose herd of animals was infected by some viral inflammation of the brain — I think it is called colloquially "mad cow" disease. This unfortunate man was in a situation where virtually his entire herd was wiped out and there was no compensation as I understand it available in this instance.
It was not a notifiable disease.
It was not a notifiable disease. I would like to use this debate to ask the Minister to consider making this a notifiable disease because it was a perfectly appalling prospect to witness a man being interviewed on television with his life in ruins, his substance and his prospect of income simply evaporating in front of him and the man simply did not know what to do. As a community which is interdependent — city dwellers are interdependent as members of the community with farmers — it is right that we should attempt to cushion those members of the farming community against this kind of disaster for which they are not prepared and against which they cannot arm themselves in advance.
It would be inappropriate for me to speak at any enormous length on this subject. I am not particularly qualified. However, I was a little bit concerned at the gentle insinuations against the badger made by Senator Doyle and the rather sharper remarks of Senator Dardis. I would like to say that I hope the Minister will study scientific studies that were conducted in England which did in fact establish that there was a low level incidence of tubercular infection quite widespread in the badger population. They went further than that, and this is where I separate myself slightly from what I understood Senator Doyle to be saying. I do not think it sufficient to establish low level incidence of TB infection in a herd.
I think one must go on and do what the British studies did and that is examine the mechanism of transference and see whether the badger can be incriminated. From my understanding of these studies there was at the least very grave doubt as to whether the badger was responsible. I greatly regret the fact that Eamon De Buitlér was not reappointed to the Seanad because I think that this is a matter on which he would be far more qualified to speak than I am. Perhaps the Minister will be able to be in touch with sources of scientific information such as that provided by Eamon De Buitléar to the previous Seanad in order to ascertain the actual scientific situation.
I know that farmers believe badgers to be a source of TB. When one has a situation, as was described earlier, of an apparently spontaneous outbreak of TB and one's livelihood is threatened and where one is aware of the fact that there are badgers in the vicinity and they they may have a certain level of tubercular infection, of course the natural human reaction is to cherchez le badger and do him in. I have noticed badgers squashed on the road. Unfortunately I am perhaps a little bit more cynical than the other Senators and I do not think that it is just because the badgers were limping across the roads in the last stages of consumption. I am certain that a sport has arisen over the last ten or 15 years. I know this because although I do not come directly from farming stock I have relatives in the country whom I visit and I know perfectly well that there is a sport abroad of just simply flattening badgers. It is regarded as quite an amusement. This is on the principal arteries between the cities and it may well be city dwellers who are doing it. People have been known to swerve right across a road in order to knock a badger out of his standing, as they say in certain parts of the country. I would like to enter a plea on behalf of the badger.
I support the concern expressed by Senator Dardis with regard to the very considerable increase of over 14 per cent in veterinary fees and, to return to my suspicions, that if we are not very careful this racket of TB eradication will continue well into the next century, I ask the Minister to ensure that it is properly a programme for eradication of TB which, as I have said earlier on, can be done. It has been demonstrated that it is possible to achieve the elimination of, not just a reduction in the incidence of TB in cattle. I was horrified by Senator Doyle's figures; a sum of £1 billion gone, not down the drain but into the pockets of the vets, and I have no doubt that there were marginal spin-off effects in supermarkets and pubs, hosiery departments, gents outfitters and so on, but I do not think that that benefit is sufficient to enable us to be satisfied——
Are you badgering the vets now?
I am badgering the vets, definitely. They richly deserve it, even though I have known quite a large number that will be voters of mine and I am seeing them disappearing down the tube as a result of what I have said today. I am quite happy that that should be the case. It does not worry me in the slightest.
I will be speaking for the vets.
Is there a veterinary school in UCD?
Not any longer; there used to be.
There are quite a number of veterinary graduates in Trinity, unfortunately. I would like to conclude by saying that we should watch this subject very carefully. It is an important aspect of the nation's economy. It is one where we require good housekeeping on the part of the Government. It is one where we have a duty to monitor the spending of these very considerable sums of money. It is appropriate that there should be reactor compensation. As a community, we are interdependent, but it is an area also in which we are entitled to proper planning, to proper targets, and the only proper target is the eradication of TB from the national herd.
I just want to make a brief contribution. In my experience as a member of the Committee of Public Accounts over the past eight years, when this Estimate came before the committee, it was always a matter of major discussion.
The failure to eradicate bovine TB over the past 30 years, under a scheme which has cost in excess of £1 billion in public funds in today's terms, and the slaughter of two million animals, is a national scandal. The Minister and Minister of State responsible for the food industry have stated — and I know they are very concerned, especially the Minister of State present — that they hope to make Ireland the food centre of Europe. Then, central to this aspiration must be the eradication of bovine diseases. This will ensure the supply of healthy and wholesome raw materials. The eradication programme to date has been a costly failure, both to farmers and the Exchequer. As I have stated, the Committee of Public Accounts were forced, over the past number of years, to the conclusion, particularly in 1988, that drastic action to remove technical and administrative constraints was essential to a cost-effective TB eradication programme. Further, the Dáil Committee of Public Accounts identified no less than 25 matters of serious concern to the operation of the eradication programme and it is to these areas I would like to see the Minister addressing himself.
The disease eradication programme has now assumed the proportions of a major industry, employing over 1,300 civil servants in various categories. Notwithstanding that, the bulk of the field work is done by approximately 800 private vets. It is right to question whether a greater degree of efficiency can be achieved so that the funds that are made available for eradication go towards the purpose for which they were designed and, above all, so that farmers, who are now expected to make an increased contribution towards eradication, will be satisfied that their contribution is going for that purpose.
The establishment of ERAD, involving all interested parties has proved most successful, in providing a new approach to the eradication of the disease. Targets set for ERAD entail the halving of the existing bovine TB over four years, and a more intensive programme is being put in place. A full round of testing of the national herd is being carried out in 1989 and I hope that this will continue into 1990. I welcome the increase in the levels of compensation allowance by the board of ERAD in May 1989, and back-dated to February 1989, which means that herd owners will be compensated for losses because of a disease breakdown and that ERAD will be greatly assisted in meeting its objective as a result of the new grant structure. The package represents concrete evidence of the commitment of the farming community and the Government to the success of the setting up of ERAD.
There is a growing consensus among individual farmers and also among farming organisations that under ERAD we are on course in a new direction to totally eliminate, and not just contain, bovine TB and brucellosis. I have every confidence in the Minister and Minister of State to see that this new direction will be seen through and I wish them every success.
I would like at the outset to welcome the statement from the Minister and agree with the principles contained in it. I am a trifle surprised that, while TB is mentioned in the statement, there is no mention at all of brucellosis. I understand that brucellosis has become a considerable problem for a small number of people with some very spectacular cases in the recent past. I would welcome the Minister informing us of the problem in relation to those herds where a slaughter policy had to be introduced, and what the genesis of the disease was in those conditions; what the likelihood of recurrence is and what preventative measures have been undertaken.
I am pleased that the scheme is going ahead with the agreement of the farming community. It is very important that farmers should be in full support of it and, indeed, I welcome the fact that they are prepared to contribute a significant amount of money towards sustaining this scheme.
Senator Foley mentioned that Ireland is being promoted as the main food centre of Europe and that it to be welcomed. It is important that if we are going to sell ourselves to Europe and the world on the basis that we produce the best of foods then we are going to have to meet the highest standards in terms of the quality of our product and that means we have to eliminate TB, that is, if that is possible.
There has been a lot of talk about the problems of TB and the difficulties which have been experienced over the years. Perhaps we have not been adequately aware of the fact that TB is a difficult problem. That is simply a reality. There are a series of difficulties and those difficulties have, to a large extent, been compounded, until the recent past, by the approach we took to the problem. Prior to the establishment of ERAD, the amount of research which was undertaken on this problem was very small, if not entirely non-existent. I welcome the establishment of ERAD. They are doing a very good job and I would like to be seen as supporting them. However, it is important also that they continue to be given the resources that they need. If this problem is to be resolved, it will be solved by adopting a scientific attitude, experimentation, and a systematic analysis of the whole problem.
Could the Minister inform me of his view in relation to the possibilities of developing a different test to diagnose TB? I believe that some research work is presently in progress in relation to the development of a blood test. The development of a blood test would be a major breakthrough and I would strongly support the provision of extra resources to help develop such a scheme. It would be far more objective. Much of the subjectivity which is unavoidable in the present test could be eliminated if a blood test was developed. It is very important that investment should be made in research to achieve that objective.
It is a complex problem because of the nature of Irish agriculture and because of the movement of animals. I understand that a typical Irish animal tours around six farms from the beginning to the end of its life. That is a fairly extensive tour of different parts of the country and, of course, as the animal goes around there is the risk that it is hawking disease from one place to another. There have also been human problems. As Senator Doyle said, there have been technical problems with the test which has been used in the past and it would be foolish to ignore the fact that these technical problems were intrinsic to the test. It was not as if they did not exist. Perhaps they could have been minimised somewhat but they are just a limitation of the test and we should recognise that.
The veterinary profession has been at the receiving end of a lot of adverse comment this morning. I have confidence in the veterinary profession; I work with them; I am involved in educating them, and I do not accept that they are prepared to falsify results or do anything other than their duty. If one stops for even a few minutes to think about it one realises that the welfare of the veterinary practitioner in large animal practice is tied up with the welfare of his client, and if TB is going to continue to be a problem it is bound, in the longer term, to militate against the welfare of our farmers. So I certainly do not accept that veterinary surgeons do anything other than behave properly in relation to their duties and their work in diagnosing tuberculosis.
There is another aspect of the relationship between veterinary surgeons and farmers on which we should be placing more emphasis, that is the question of veterinary surgeons being encouraged to provide more advice to farmers in relation to preventive medicine. There is a great need for a good deal more advice for farmers on how this disease is transmitted and what methods and strategies can be utilised to prevent outbreaks occurring.
The question of epidemiology is very important. It is an imprecise science but nevertheless a very important one. It has provided a tremendous amount of information which in the last century and day up to the present has led to major discoveries in the treatment of a whole variety of diseases. I believe it is the epidemiological analysis that has been the basis of a lot of the progress which is being made in other countries in relation to the treatment and prevention of heart disease in the human population. Epidemiology as a science has certainly received a certain amount of bad press and that has come from pure scientists who find some of the technologies and the methodology used in this area less precise than the type of thing pure physicists or mathematicians are used to.
I suppose there has been a reluctance on the part of Irish people generally to face up to the problem which involves making difficult decisions — and in the past meant that we recognised the problem. There was a very understandable temptation for us to shy away from that. That temptation in part arose from the fact that if it was said there was a very serious TB problem in this country it created knock-on problems for the marketing of Irish farm produce. It is very easy to forget that that was the reality and, I suppose, to some degree it still is.
When we talk about the problem I feel we do not pay enough attention to how intrinsically difficult eradicating TB can be. I understand, for example that in Australia there are areas where the authorities have simply contented themselves with containing the problem. The feeling is that that is the best that can be done. I am not suggesting that that should be the attitude in this country; I am simply pointing that out to illustrate what an intrinsically difficult problem this is.
I want to mention very briefly the knock-on effect of TB eradication. That really relates to how quotas were set up in the early eighties. There was a very specific problem for people who were caught in a disease trap at that time. They found their quota had been adversely affected because they had a disease problem when the quota standards were being laid down. I want to draw attention to that and ask the Minister to what extent these people have been facilitated and if there are plans to help those in the farming community who fared very badly because of the anomalies which arose because their herds had disease when the standards for quotas were being laid down in the 1980 to 1983 period.
I have a few words to say on this. It is not an area on which I have a great deal of expertise, I would be the first to admit that. However I have a certain amount of knowledge about it because I am very regularly involved with farmers and have discussed this issue at length with them. I have also discussed the matter in some detail over a long period with vets, and I want to put the record right from their point of view before this debate ends. They have been verbally abused during the debate here today.
They provide an excellent service, and work in the most difficult surroundings, in the most trying circumstances, are very poorly paid for their commitment and have to wait a long time for payment in many instances. They need the expertise, the skill and commitment of doctors but they are never recognised as such within the community. They are the first people to suffer from recessions in the agricultural industry because they are always the last people to be paid. That should also be put on the record.
This idea that the vets of Ireland are going around milking the system is less than truthful. Apart from the low fee they are allowed, they are working a system over which they do not have control, in which they have consistently made proposals to have changes which have been consistently ignored by the Government. The parties in Government should look into their souls, into their conscience and into their past. It was the leader of the Minister's party who said that in the new Republic we would export our livestock instead of our young people. It is interesting to look back at the position in the great industry of agriculture over the last eight years when we managed to quadruple emigration and halve the national herd. That is the sad reflection on us.
I concur completely with the need for taxpayers to get a return on their taxes. I agree with the point made by Senator Doyle about the whereabouts of our £1 billion. What have we got to show for it, and why is it that in the other part of this island TB is down to 0.4 per cent or 0.5 per cent of the herd? We seem unable to match that.
It is also significant that since we began the programme of the eradication of bovine TB, as well as spending £1 billion, we have slaughtered two million animals. The sense of loss in terms of export, industry, jobs and the effect on the national herd, is quite significant. Before coming into the Chamber I listened to Senator Dardis' proposals and found it of some interest. When I came back in I decided to check that I heard correctly, I went down to the Library to find out what precisely was the position of the Progressive Democrats the last time this was discussed on 7 April 1987. I found from the record of the Dáil proceedings at that time that the then spokesperson on Agriculture, Deputy McCoy said:
The Progressive Democrats oppose any increase in the levies and indeed are opposed to them in principle.
I do not know where Damascus is, and I spend my life searching for it but I hope somebody will point the way at some stage because I would like to hear the process by which this change took place. It would be important for us to recognise where the change took place and what happened between 1987 and now to change the point of principle. We are due an explanation because maybe there are developments about which we are not aware.
The Senator might find it in the small print of the Programme for Government.
Far be it from me to contribute to rows between the parties represented in this House, but in the interests of accuracy and the record one should bring these things to the attention of the House. We have noted the Progressive Democrats have changed position.
The vets are on call 24 hours a day. The one disease they cannot deal with on a clinical basis is bovine TB. I would like to know how we justify this. On the one hand, we stand up and make fine speeches blaming the vets, let us put all the blame at their door, on the other hand, nobody takes any notice of them. Part of their job is to control the health of the national herd so why not let them get on with it? Why do we not ask them how they feel it should be done? Why not implement their proposals for a change? Successive Governments have tried this for many years now. They have all had their go at it. Why do we not let the professionals move in, listen to what they have to say, implement it and see does it work? I ask the Minister not to come back and talk about the half-hearted implementation of proposals that come from the professionals in this job before now, because it is quite clear to me that they have never been given the full involvement that they would be entitled to.
I want to make another general point on the question of direct levies. This refers back to the point made by the Progressive Democrats two years ago. While I am not opposed in principle to the idea of direct levies, I find a general sense of anxiety about it because I believe that the health of the national herd is of common interest to all of us and it is too important to be left to individual farmers, or individuals anywhere. There is too much at risk, there is too much at stake.
The way to deal with it is through taxation. I do not intend making a speech on taxation but I would like to lay down that general principle. It is not a case of levying to get a job done, it is in the interest of the nation that this job be done and that it should be paid for through proper taxation. I will say no more on that issue. That would be my general approach to it. However, having said that, I will not oppose the proposal today. I just make that point. As a general thrust, I would prefer a move in that particular direction.
In terms of where the vet is involved in this, I asked a vet recently about the amount of paperwork, the amount of administration and the amount of general work involved in the normal test. I went through the whole process of testing with a vet, one animal for TB and brucellosis. Obviously I am taking an example so that I can examine it under a microscope. For better or for worse — I am sure the Minister is aware of this — in order to carry out that operation the vet has to append his or her signature to 13 different documents. Does the Minister not think we should also look at the scale of that committment, the back-up and the support that vets require in order to carry out the proper decisions of the State in this matter? I just want people to see it also from that point of view. Surely there must be an easier way of doing it.
More importantly is that we do not trust the vets, at the end of all that. As I said earlier, the State does not trust the vets just to look after the eradication of TB. It is treated differently from any other bovine disease. Not only that, although we ask the vet to go out and test the herd, when he, through the professional application of his knowledge and expertise, etc., identifies an animal as being a reactor, could somebody explain to me why at that point he cannot say, "Get that animal off the farm now", or "Arrange for that to be done immediately"? Under the present regulations, having found a reactor in the herd, the vet has three days to bring that information, paperwork, etc., to the Department and set the process in train. Why cannot the veterinary surgeon set that process in train immediately that he or she has identified a reactor animal in the herd? Surely we would save further infection, further spread of the disease and it would be a more efficient and effective way of dealing with it.
I would like to hear from the Minister about the process by which veterinary surgeons are nominated to examine and to carry out tests on herds. How does that process actually develop and how is it done? The more I seek information on it, the muddier the waters become. It also seems to me, at the moment anyway, that for the veterinary surgeon to carry out this process it takes approximately three visits, or three days' work, an involvement over a period of three days. There is the first day testing, the 72 hour repeat, there is the checking of the number, the checking of the description, the checking of the reaction and all the paperwork that goes with that. There is also, of course, the brucellosis blood test and sending back the individual blood samples from each animal that has been tested to the lab, etc.
A huge volume of work is undertaken on behalf of the State by veterinary surgeons. If the vet, having gone through the procedure, identifies a reactor animal, then has the commitment and responsibility to ring the Department immediately and follow up with information or forms within a three-day period — I must stress this point — it seems utter nonsense to me that there should be a delay between the identification of the reactor animal and when the actual process of removal takes place. I can see no reason why, if the vet who is a professional person, has identified the reactor animal, that he could not set in train the process by which that animal would be removed immediately, and demand that that be done.
I move on to what happens after the vet has completed his or her work on the farm, has identified and arranged for the removal of reactor animals, has passed the remainder of the herd, has signed all the necessary documentation and has handed over all the appropriate paperwork to the herd owner. Where are we at that point? The herd are now clear for 120 days. This, of course, is where the whole problem arises, and this is where vets are getting unnecessary stick and unnecessary criticism because the view of the vets that I have spoken to, and certainly the view of the Irish Veterinary Union and the Irish Veterinary Association as far as we know, on these matters, is quite clear. They utterly disagree with the present position that people can move animals over that 120 day period as many times as they want to. It leads to abuse of the scheme.
Senator Upton mentioned the fact that the normal animal, whatever that is, might move seven or eight times during his or her working career from one farm to another, etc. The fact is that an animal could be moved seven or eight times in the 120 days if somebody wished to do so and it could have been in contact with seven or eight different farms, seven or eight different herds, or whatever number that would go into operation. What happens then — I would certainly direct the Minister's attention to this — if at the end of 120 days when the animal is on a completely new farm, in a new herd, with all the passports, documentation and description there, and a new vet comes along and finds that this animal, which was clear 120 days ago, is now a reactor?
Where do we go from there? What is the vet to do? What is the State to do? What is the farmer to do? How do we check back which of the six, seven, eight or nine movements of the previous four months is the one which led to the spread of the disease? You cannot do it. It becomes a physical impossibility, so the round begins all over again. He goes through that herd, and the animals from that herd may move again afterwards. The reason I am stressing this point is to point out very clearly that it is the system, the arrangement and the rules and the regulations, that have led to the failure to eradicate bovine TB.
It is not a matter that can be laid at the door of the veterinary profession. It is a matter that can be laid at the door of the regulations which are nonsensical and unimplementable in the context of eradicating TB. We need a very clear proposal and I will ask the Minister to respond very specifically to it. The proposal is very simply this. Before any movement takes place there should be a test. That makes it quite simple. That is one way of ensuring that there is no movement without identifying where the infection is, or where the spread of the disease takes place. I would be the first to admit that it would be impossible to implement and operate that. It is the movement that creates the problem so we must control the movement.
I believe, and many others also believe, that brucellosis could be as good as cleared in this country if we gave it the final push. I do not know why there was a relaxation in the regulations last year when we were so close to victory. We were just so close to beating the brucellosis problem and then we decided to relax the regulations about movement, I believe we are losing control of it again. It is decisions like that over the decades that have led us to the position we now have, having spent £1 billion, having slaughtered two million cattle and we still have failed to eradicate TB.
It is because of those kind of politically motivated nonsensical decisions that we have failed to eradicate TB. If we are going to keep to the 120 days testing we should say: "During 120 days we will confine you to one movement"; in other words, 120 days and one movement or else if there is to be any number of movements we reduce it to a month. It is impossible to trace back the movement of animals between herds and between farms if we do not either reduce the number of movements or reduce the amount of time. There is only one way that can lead to eradication. There are two variables, there is the movement and there is the time. We have to close down on one of those if we are to retain any kind of control or be able to check where the disease is coming from or going to.
Over the years we have adopted a fire brigade approach to this disease. We spent the sixties and seventies having a go at the dealers. They were the fall guys at that stage and, quite rightly so, they were the target at that time. We spent the sixties and the seventies trying to sort them out and then we went on to the late seventies and eighties and we spent most of that time working on tags and getting a tamper-proof tag. Perhaps we have reached that stage even though some people will say no. We have gone through all the intermediate procedures and everything is in place now but it takes political nerve in order to make the final push on these things.
We have also tightened up on legislation. There was a time when I would have said that part of the problem with the failure of the TB eradication scheme was because of the lack of severe penalties to deter unscrupulous people. The penalties are heavy enough now and we just need to see they are implemented widely and publicly. I hope they will continue to be implemented.
I would like to say a few words about the question of payment of vets. It is something I do not know a lot about and I do not pretend to have a lot of information on it. It is clear that because vets are not allowed to deal with TB like other diseases they are constrained in their approach to it. I believe they would be far happier to deal with it more as clinicians where they would be paid per animal, they would be paid per call out and they would be paid in the same way as they are paid for dealing with other diseases. There should be a normal payment plus expenses. That is the normal way that we deal with other diseases, I ask that it be looked at.
I know that a survey was done recently on the way vets are paid for their work, I understand that the report contained a proposal that there would be backdating of the new rates for veterinary surgeons but I am now told that the Government are refusing to implement that. That is shameful and it is the kind of thing that leads to bad relations between the Department and the veterinary profession. I ask the Minister to take a hand in this matter and see to it that the proposals as recommended are implemented and that people get their due. It is the report of an independent group and one that should be accepted by Government.
Most of the Senators have spoken about the badger. The badger is getting a raw deal in this discussion. It would appear certain that badgers can be the cause of spreading bovine TB. There is no longer any doubt about that but some people still do not accept it. There is also the fact, which is not clearly accepted either, that not every badger in the country is carrying TB or can spread it. That is the second factor. Then there is the emotional response of a farmer who is losing money, who is found to have reactors in his herd, who knows there are badgers on his land and if somebody does not do something about it he will take a gun and clear the pest, as he sees it, from his land. It is hard to blame him for doing that.
That is the problem but how do we approach it in order to be supportive of the need to protect our wildlife, to eradicate TB and to be supportive also of the farmers position? There must be a scientific approach to this. Areas should be tested to see if badgers are carrying and spreading TB. If they are they must be eradicated in that area. They are hard work but that is the way it should be approached. Similarily, if they are not carrying TB they should be left alone. It is a very simple approach. It is costly but it is the only acceptable way for people who want to look at the various demands that are being made on us to protect wildlife, to eradicate TB and to also give support to the farmer who wants to keep a disease-free herd. I ask the Minister to respond very specifically on that point.
Townlands should be surveyed and if there is a badger problem there it should be addressed in that townland. We do not need people with shotguns throughout the country deciding to take the resolution of this matter into their own hands, which will not be an acceptable or a scientific way of dealing with the problem. As I said at the beginning, it is not an area in which I am particularly expert. The professionals in this area, the vets, should be asked for their advice and this time it should be taken and implemented. Everything else has failed to produce the results at a cost of £1 billion and two million animals. I am not putting the blame on any Government, on any party or any group. The one group of people who have not been allowed to sort it out are the professionals. We should talk to the professionals, take their advice, implement it and see how that works.
It should be clear to everyone that our TB eradication scheme over the years has essentially been a failure. It has been a failure on a number of levels, first it has not alleviated the problem and secondly, it has cost this country vast sums of money. I feel that central to the failure of the TB eradication scheme has been the fact that the farmer has not been adequately compensated for their animals. The lack of proper compensation for the farmers has obviously affected their level of co-operation with the scheme. I am convinced that if a proper compensation structure were put in place, and if we are serious about TB eradication, this should be done and there would be a change in the attitude of farmers. The recent advertising campaign in the media has gone a little of the journey towards attitudinal change on eradication but I believe that fundamental to it must be the price given to farmers for reactors. I would like to ask the Minister how the price of reactors relates to the present market price and to what degree that is the case at the moment. I would also like to ask whether the Minister accepts the contention that we must progressively increase compensation to farmers as the effective way of getting their co-operation. Given the hardship that farmers are enduring at the moment and the grave problems facing farmers who bought last spring and have recently sold beef cattle, it is unreasonable to expect their complete co-operation without adequate compensation. Could the Minister give us his thoughts on that?
I would also like to know from the Minister the degree, in the national screening test, to which cases of false positive have been found, in other words, the degree to which animals that did have lesions leading to their being committed to the factories were found to be tuberculosis free on arrival in the factories. Subsequent to that I would ask the Minister whether it is his view that there is an absolute case for giving those people the full market or the full commercial value of the animals.
I would also like to ask the Minister, since we are discussing bovine disease in the general sense, can he tell us why, despite the fact that we are declared to be brucellosis free, there has been a recent upsurge in brucellosis. I would be interested in the minister's response on that.
The fundamental view I rose to express and I would urge the Minister and the Government to agree is that until we have a proper compensation structure in place we cannot solve this problem.
Let me welcome all the new Senators and the return of some of the older Senators. I would like to welcome particularly the new people here — Senator John Dardis, Senator Jackman, Senator O'Reilly, Senator Pat Upton and Senator Eoin Ryan. I am very pleased to be here in this new Chamber. It is a change from some of the surroundings I am used to. It is a beautifully decorated Chamber — the doorways, the fireplaces, the ceiling and embellished of course by the distinguished Senators. I want to pay tribute to the Office of Public Works. I want to congratulate you, a Chathaoirleach on your elevation to the position of Cathaoirleach for this term.
I want to briefly sum up by thanking the Senators. I am sorry, Senator Doyle, I was not here for your reportedly brialliant contribution. I am sure it was because I had the privilege of being in the lower House with you and indeed all your contributions are brilliant, if I may say so. Senator John Dardis made a very incisive contribution. Senator David Norris made a Joycean contribution to this debate. I do not know how widespread mad cow disease is in these chambers. We may introduce a test for it on entry here at some stage.
Senator Denis Foley's background in the Public Accounts Committee was very useful to us. Senator Pat Upton made a technically superb speech. Senator Joe O'Toole made a spirited defence of the veterinary faculty and the veterinary graduates and a plea to have those hard pressed professionals paid at a higher rate. I will see what I can do in that regard. I would like to thank Senator Joe O'Reilly for his useful contribution. He sought an increase in compensation to farmers for reactors. This is in line with a number of contributions made here today. With the more aggressive campaign to have the incidence of animal disease, particularly TB, in a four year programme we can expect an increase in the number of reactors which will have to be compensated for. The estimated figures will go up from 29,000 in 1988 to 42,000 this year. I think it is fair to record that the bulk of the money is coming from the farmers out of a total of £31.585 million, £21.4 million of the £31 is coming from the farmers themselves and £10 million from the Exchequer. I think that is a reasonable ratio.
I do not agree with Senator Joe O'Toole who said that the general taxpayer should have to pay this entirely. I think it is appropriate that there would be a contribution from the people who are being compensated and we have a duty as well to take appropriate action and to observe general hygiene regulations. They are the people who are mainly going to benefit from a disease free status for not alone the animal industry but for the general agriculture and food industry.
The question of badgers was raised by many speakers here. The position in relation to badgers, of course, is that to some extent they may be the scapegoat. I remember a number of years ago it was the unfortunate hen population — which were supposed to be the main contributory factor — my poor mother had to get rid of every single hen she had in the place. It is only in recent times that I am able to avail myself of the free range egg again which is a very desirable development. In relation to badgers scientific work had been carried out in this area by Professor Dan Collins and if anybody wants a copy of his report which was produced last year I will make it available to them — this is on the badger as a contributory factor to this problem. There is some evidence that the badger is a contributory factor. Personally I do not like to be that hard on the badger and I do not agree with things like widescale gassing of badgers, but I accept that if people want to nail the badger then they have to look for a licence to do it and the Wildlife Service are quite right to be selective about giving licences.
On the question of a TB investigation unit, the present position is that an investigation unit has been set up at the Veterinary College under the direction of Professor Dan Collins. There is an investigation taking place at the moment on the suitability of electronic tags but it is at a very early stage and it is ongoing. We will not be in a position to know if we can replace the existing tags by electronic tags for a little while yet. It would be desirable. It is not so long ago that in the boot of any old car you could get what tags you wanted and a piece of tagging equipment as well. It was just a question of what tag numbers you wanted. There were weaknesses in the scheme over the past 30 or 40 years, glaring weaknesses. Many a time I travelled behind an old truck with all sorts of effluent oozing out of it. What is most galling is the fact that these trucks then pull up at a mart, unload some of the cattle and then drive on to the factory with the TB reactors in the truck. That certainly did not lead to good practices in the eradication or elimination or reduction of the disease. In fact it contributed to the incidence of it. ERAD certainly are taking a very serious view of these shortcomings and are making some progress. Again in relation to the veterinary people and the contribution they can make to it, the veterinary profession have two members on the board of ERAD. ERAD is quite a broadly based board. If they have a contribution to make they should make it through the board of ERAD and see how they can be more meaningful in getting rid of this disease once and for all.
There are other shortcomings at present. There is a number of people who regularly call on farmers. The farmers themselves should insist to a far greater degree that these casual callers should be more observant of elementary hygiene regulations. It is seldom enough that you find in a farmyard a vat of detergent, Jeyes fluid in the old days was a regular one. People visiting the farm, dealing with or handling animals should have their wellington boots washed in a vat of detergent before proceeding to deal with the cattle herd. If people in the farming community have a valuable herd and valuable stock they should insist on that. They are the people who have the most to lose.
Senator Upton raised the matter of blood testing for TB. In fact work is going on at Abbotstown laboratory at the moment on that matter and we hope to have some results shortly on the feasibility of blood testing for TB.
Senator Upton raised the question of farmers with milk quota problems. There is a good number of such farmers. At the early stages of the milk quota there was an opportunity for people who had herd difficulties, disease difficulties or indeed if the farmer himself or herself had an ill health difficulty, to get some increase in their quota. It was not enough but it was an acknowledgement of the fact that some farmers were unfortunate either in their domestic circumstances or in the fact their herd had a breakdown. There is at present an application for and a discussion on the setting up of a 1 per cent reserve of milk for unfortunate cases and for new entrants and people with low quotas. Hopefully people in the farming community who had difficulties with disease will be able to avail of some additional milk quota.
The conditions will be very hard to comply with to get that 1 per cent.
They will indeed, in the Irish context of 1,100 million gallons 1 per cent is only 11 million gallons and 11 million gallons is not enough to go around to make any reasonable impact. The condition will have to be quite restrictive. I accept the Senator's point even though it is not for this debate. We will have to wait until a general review of the milk quota in 1992 to get any reasonable quota for the many people who want to make a living from dairying.
In relation to the rounds, there is full TB round in place this year. In brucellosis there is a full milk ring and blood testing round for non-lactating animals. In 1990 there will be a full TB round again and a full blood test for brucellosis. The tuberculin used at the moment is a Dutch type tuberculin. Epidemiology work is being carried out——
Dutch top and bottom?
I do not know but I can get the details for the Senator. In Kilkenny and Clare and a number of counties work is being carried out.
I appreciate the contributions made by the various Senators. I will get the Official Report of the Seanad, take the views expressed and the contributions made to Dr. Liam Downey, director of ERAD and his people and I am sure they will be quite helpful to the board of ERAD in——
May I beg your indulgence, before you conclude? What is going to be done about the transport of calves from infected herds? Also what method of recording the extent of the disease is being used? Prevalence? Incidence? We cannot measure whether we have got an increase or a decrease if we do not know what we are starting from.
I will have to communicate personally with the Senator in relation to that.
That is the kernel of the whole question, whether we are increasing or decreasing.
In relation to TB the present information I have is that the incidence level is 3 per cent. I can only assume that that is the criterion that is being used.
ERAD is continuing to use incidence as their method?
Yes. I will communicate with the Senator on that. There was the question of whether market value could be paid. The price which people get for reactors with this subsidy in virtually all cases is a reasonably adequate compensation to farmers and herd owners with one exception, that is people with pedigree herds. They lose out very heavily because they are not compensated as fully as they should. I am going to have a look at that also.
I thank the Senators for their contributions and I will bring their views to the attention of ERAD.
Question put and agreed to.
Sitting suspended at 1.20 p.m. and resumed at 1.45 p.m.