Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 January 2016
359. Deputy Pat Deering asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will review the regulations governing farmers who have an outbreak of tuberculosis who specialise in beef-finishing, given that beef-finishers are restricted from purchasing livestock and can only sell to a factory, and given that farmers could be completely out of business because of the inability to have a constant supply of livestock. [46880/15]
View answerThe restrictions on buying animals into herds where the presence of TB has been confirmed and the restrictions on selling animals out of these same herds, except directly to slaughter, derive from the EU legislation governing bovine TB eradication programmes. These regulations permit farmers to buy in cattle when the herd has passed one clear TB test. Given that these requirements derive from binding EU legislation, it is not open to my Department to depart from them.
