The bovine TB eradication scheme is now costing £60 million a year to administer and involves about 800 people, the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Mr John Malone, told the Committee on Public Accounts yesterday. Progress is being hindered because of the absence of an anti-TB vaccine for badgers, he said.
The chairman of the committee, Mr Jim Mitchell (FG), said the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the Department's management of the scheme, and other operations, was the most damning he had read in his time as a Dail deputy.
Mr Malone said the Department had taken "no pride" in the Comptroller's report. "We acknowledge that fault lines exist," Mr Malone added, but he denied the Department was complacent.
Mr Mitchell said the report had brought shame on the Department of Agriculture. He was especially critical of the fact that about 4,500 cattle managed to qualify simultaneously for male and female premium payments. "It was like paying male applicants the unmarried mothers' allowance," Mr Mitchell said.
Mr Malone agreed with Mr Denis Foley (FF) that the TB eradication scheme had cost £1.5 billion since it was introduced 43 years ago. The eradication process had stalled in recent years, he said. The principal reason for this, he said, was an increase in the badger population, which now numbers an estimated 250,000.
Badgers are an ideal host for TB and at night they mix very regularly with cattle, Mr Malone said. He queried the wisdom of devoting further resources to eradication while there was no anti-TB vaccine for badgers.
Mr Conor Lenihan (FF) suggested that consumer interest might be better served by removing responsibility for bovine TB eradication from the Department of Agriculture.