The equivalent of the cost of the national children’s hospital has been spent trying to eradicate bovine TB (tuberculosis) in Ireland and the situation is “probably worse now” than decades ago, the Dáil has heard.
Sinn Féin agriculture spokesman Martin Kenny made the claim that the current estimated cost of the hospital at €2.24 billion had been spent on schemes to eliminate the disease without success.
His comments came as Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon confirmed that bovine TB levels “have continued to deteriorate”.
Compensation to farmers affected by TB was €20 million for 2020. It was €20 million for the first four months of this year.
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Mr Heydon said “herd incidence has increased from 4.31 per cent in 2022 to 6.04 per cent in 2024, resulting in a 36 per cent increase in the number of herds restricted between those two years”.
Over 12 months to May 11th this year, 6.3 per cent of herds – approximately 6,000 – were affected with more than 42,200 reactor animals.
“This disease is having an impact on our farmers and their families financially but also emotionally,” Mr Heydon said. “It is a hugely traumatic time when this hits” as he knew from his constituents “and I know from lived experience as well”.
Mr Kenny, TD for Sligo-Leitrim, said there were huge challenges “with farmers being locked up and not able to sell or trade their animals. The efforts that have been made over the decades have not yielded results”. He asked if the eradication programme should now be called a failure.
He said €75 million was spent on eradication in 2023.
“We talk about the price of the children’s hospital; you are into that kind of money having been spent on trying to eradicate TB in this country. We are probably worse now than we were many decades ago.”
Among the measures now proposed to address the issue is to restrict the sale of cows from herds of more than 60 that had a TB outbreak “with three or more standards reactors in the previous three years”.
But Fine Gael Laois TD Willie Aird said it would be a “drastic move” to prevent a farmer selling his stock in a mart for up to three years.
The Government backbencher said it would have a “devastating effect” on farmers with “a stigma attached to farmers like myself”. And there is “no guarantee that taking a draconian step like this would have any effects”.
The Minister said, however, that “the scale of the challenge at the minute is significant and deteriorating so it cannot be business as usual” and he pointed to the €20 million cost of compensation in the first four months of 2025.
“Everything that is possible is being considered, and everything has been looked at,” Mr Heydon said. He had engaged in a deliberative process with all stakeholders over the past number of months and will meet them again later this week with a revised set of proposals.
“This has been a very deliberative process but I have made the point that this process cannot go on forever, such is the level of incidence.”
Mr Kenny pointed to concerns about the spread through deer and badgers but the Minister told him the suggestion that “wildlife is the only problem is factually incorrect”.
“There are three drivers of this disease among our bovine animals. One is wildlife, one is cattle-to-cattle transmission and the other is residual left where there is a large outbreak in a herd. If we do not tackle all three we will leave a gap in the fence for this to continue to seep through. I cannot let that happen.”
