Name and address with editor

DEAR SIR: I had TB reactors discovered in my dairy herd recently. I have always maintained a closed herd, never buying in stock, and always maintained good boundary fences and other biosecurity measures etc, so having reactors has come as a big shock to us.

The depression I am feeling because of this “breakdown” is overpowering. I cannot sleep thinking of my cows that will be slaughtered, being locked up for months into the future, loss of sale of calves next year, loss of sales of milk which will now have to be fed to these extra calves, and all the additional work involved in keeping extra stock for which I have neither the space or the time to look after properly.

Why has TB not been eradicated from Ireland? It seems that a whole industry has been built up over the years involving TB eradication, yet it is farmers like me that are being eradicated, not TB.

Since my breakdown, I have been contacted by so many officials in the Department from all over the country (vets, officials, inspectors), all telling me basic biosecurity stuff that every farmer knows, yet my reactors have not yet been removed and probably won’t be until after Christmas, thus keeping the bug alive on my farm.

While all these individuals have been polite to me, I feel that I am guilty of some awful sin and that I should be grateful for the compensation I am being offered, despite it being only a tiny fraction of my consequential loss.

Not one of these officials can tell me how TB got into my herd, so is this going to keep on happening to farmers like me again? These officials all have well-paid, permanent jobs unlike us farmers who are ultimately paying the price for the fact that ERAD have not eradicated TB from Ireland.