Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon is to seek more money from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for Ireland’s revamped TB eradication programme, Irish Farmers Journal can reveal.

“I am seeking more money to fund this, because this is a very significant outlay in terms of what I’m proposing to do.

“I’d need approval from Department of Public Expenditure, yes, because ultimately here I’m talking about a lot more blood testing, a lot more resources on the wildlife side, a lot more investment that in the short-term will identify more reactors.

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“Reactors that are there and we need to find, and we need to find them in the herds where they are now, and not have them seed out and travel to other low-risk herds and for that disease to continue to spread as it is. For me to get that extra finances, I get one shot at this to do this right so I have to make sure that it has the measures,” he said.

“In the short-term there will be an increase in reactors if we do this right, not necessarily an increase in the amount of herds but the herds that do have reactors…we’ll find more of them there and we do need to find it.

“To do this I have to do this right, I’d really like to do it with consensus with the farm organisations,” he said.

The Minister said that he wants to make sure the measures that come in are practical, support farmers, help those 94% of farmers that don’t have TB to avoid getting it and support the 6% of farmers that do have it, to give them a roadmap and a light at the end of the tunnel out of their current travails.

“What I want to do is have all of that in place and as I say, I’ve given this due time, but we are very close to a final decision on this now.”

Funding

The Minister would not confirm how much funding he will seek from the Department of Public Expenditure but noted that the budget for TB for 2025 has already been surpassed.

He said that he wants to implement the new measures as soon as possible, ideally before the Dáil breaks for the summer.

“I’ve been very clear here, I did want to have proper deliberation.

“Nobody can say we haven’t had meaningful deliberation with all the key stakeholders. I’ve given this the time it deserves because this is a really big decision,” he said.