A new TB eradication transformation programme has been put in place by DAERA to deliver against a blueprint published by the TB partnership steering group in April 2025.

That blueprint set out various priorities under three themes of ‘people, cattle and wildlife’.

Answering ministerial questions in Stormont on Monday, Agriculture Minister Andrew Muir said that the initial priorities of DAERA’s new TB programme will include working on options for wildlife intervention to help control the disease. A public consultation is expected in the coming months.

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The other priority areas include work to ensure that TB testing is undertaken to the required standard. In addition, resources are being directed at providing on-farm biosecurity advice to farmers and on expanding the use of the interferon-gamma blood test.

“I am committed to progressing the new measures in order to tackle the disease as quickly as possible,” said Minister Muir.

Pilot

Last Friday, alongside Irish Farm Minister Martin Heydon, he announced a new joint project under the Irish Governments ‘Shared Island Initiative’ “to tackle the growing impact of bovine TB on farms in a pilot area”.

When asked by Lagan Valley MLA Robbie Butler on Monday where the pilot area would be, Minister Muir said the two departments were working through the issues, but it was “likely to be in a border area”.

He also revealed on Monday, he has bid for money to help support DAERA’s new TB programme from a £235m five-year transformation fund set up in NI when the Stormont Executive was restored in 2024.

“We were not successful in the first round, but we have submitted a second bid,” confirmed Minister Muir.

Costs

However, the main cost of the current TB programme remains the compensation paid for reactor animals. With record high numbers and record high prices, estimates suggest DAERA will have to pay out over £45m in reactor compensation in the current financial year.

A detailed breakdown of costs in the 10 years to 2023-2024 was recently set out in a Freedom of Information response published on the DAERA website. In 2023-2024, reactor compensation cost £36.5m.

There was also £12.2m paid to private vets and £11.7m of DAERA’s own staff costs. Just under £10m was recovered in salvage value for reactor cattle, leaving the total bill at £55.7m. Two years later, that total is expected to be over £65m.

Figures

Meanwhile, the latest bovine TB statistics from DAERA show that TB rates remain very high in NI. Annual herd incidence, which is a measure of new TB reactor herds out of all herds tested, stood in August 2025 at 10.83%. Across 2024, herd incidence averaged 10.70% and in 2023 it was at 10.05%.

During August 2025 there were 1,892 reactor animals removed off farms at TB tests, taking the total across the first 8 months of the year to 12,701 head. That is marginally down on the 13,101 from the same period in 2024, but 18% ahead of the 2023 figure.