Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 25 April 2024
69. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he has any intention of revisiting the foot and mouth compensation scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18432/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraIreland experienced an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in March 2001. On 22nd March 2001, the case was confirmed in a sheep flock near Jenkinstown County Louth.
The only way to contain any further incursion of the disease in the country was to cull a large number of animals in the Cooley Peninsula, near the source of the outbreak.
It is estimated that the culling within the Cooley Peninsula impacted 48,744 sheep, 166 goats, 1,123 cattle, 2,908 pigs, and 280 deer. Outside the Cooley Peninsula it is estimated that 3,826 sheep and 207 cattle were also culled.
This prompt action by the Minister at the time and extensive culling in the area around the infected premises resulted in the successful control of the disease, which if it had spread, would have caused immeasurable damage to Irish agriculture.
Many businesses across the economy were adversely affected by this outbreak. Farmers who lost stock due to depopulation, were compensated for their losses in a payment under Section 17 of the Diseases of Animals Act 1966. In order to estimate the value of this stock, the Department used the services of an expert independent valuer.
My Department considers that flock owners were appropriately compensated financially for their losses at the time. The compensation payments made to farmers in 2001 were clearly understood by recipients to be in full and final settlement of any losses they had suffered as a consequence of the depopulation.
Consequently, this is a matter which I regard as being satisfactorily concluded and we can see no legal basis or other justification to revisit the foot and mouth compensation scheme, more than two decades later.
