We are doing something very wrong in this country in relation to controlling TB in our national cattle herd.

John Keane the former Macra president and a dairy farmer in Laois, recently presented a paper to the Nuffield conference in Horse and Jockey on his findings on how New Zealand, with a cattle population bigger than Ireland’s and a long-running bovine TB problem, has reduced the number of reactor herds to 16. Yes, 16.

In the last year up to June 2025, Ireland had almost 6,500 herds restricted and over 43,000 reactors with 6% of herds restricted, the highest in 16 years.

ADVERTISEMENT

The chickens are now coming home to roost, with an incredible €158m allocated to the programme in the recent budget, an astonishing €20 for every cow, bullock and calf in the country.

We are all paying, between a levy on every animal slaughtered and cutbacks in other areas that need funding as well as the general taxpayer.

This saga has gone on since 1954.

We had lulled ourselves into a false sense of security vis-à-vis our counterparts in New Zealand by thinking they will always have the same problem as us as they have their possum and deer.

Maybe so, but they have controlled the possum problems with the sensible step of dropping bait from light aircraft flying over difficult-to-access areas.

Think of Coillte’s forests, especially in Wicklow, which are riddled with infected, difficult-to-reach deer. I have been in endless IFA meetings where farmers from west Wicklow have had harrowing tales of damage to crops and pasture as well as having the highest incidence of bovine TB in the country.

We need to get real.

The prospect of a cure-all vaccine is a mirage.

Maybe it will come in the long term, but there are so many caveats that it is foolish to expect it to be available anytime soon and research on it should be confined to a few specialist scientists working with international colleagues.

If they come up with a breakthrough, fine, but don’t let it influence the need for urgent and effective action.

So far the latest plans for the control of bovine TB, let’s not pretend it’s an eradication programme, strike me as broadly more of the same.

The last real effort was when ERAD was set up under Dr Liam Downey in 1988 before he became the director of Teagasc.

Despite some obvious mistakes, progress was made under Dr Downey.

Since then, almost 40 years ago, progress has been lacklustre, as has policy. It’s time for a radical change that takes real cognisance of the wildlife problem as well as rethinking movement restrictions.