I am glad to get time to raise this very important matter, the spread of tuberculosis and the TB eradication scheme, which is clearly not working. We have more outbreaks of TB now after 46 or 47 years of testing. There are so many farmers going down in east Kerry, mid-Kerry and south Kerry. Even in Kilgarvan, many farmers have gone down, including our neighbour, Mikey Joe Murphy, who is very local to us and does everything right. He has never bought in any cows or animals and gives and does all he can to maintain and improve his herd. If I look out at 7.30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, his cows are leaving the parlour, milked. Half an hour later, we can see him topping or spreading fertiliser, even on a Sunday. He goes at it around the clock. He had an outbreak of tuberculosis last Friday week and 26 of his 66 cows have gone down. That is very hard for any farmer, especially somebody like Mikey Joe, who farms full time and whose farm income is his primary income to provide for his wife and family. He tells me that the compensation he will get is in no way adequate for the type of cows he had. An independent valuer stated they were worth in excess of €4,500. He seems to think he will only get €3,150. The Department should know by now that the cost of cattle has risen sharply in the past 12 months, meaning replacing the animals will cost much more. We heard the Minister, Deputy Heydon, say he had secured extra funding, but what is it for? Is it to curb the primary cause? I do not think so. It seems to be for the secondary issue of more testing and disposal reactors. The number of reactors has been going up steadily since 2018 when there were 7,500. That figure is now up to 41,630. Is is it true that no culling of badgers has taken place in the past two years and they have only been vaccinated? What good is vaccinating a badger that has TB? For many years, the Department has denied the fact that deer and badgers are the primary reason for the spread of the disease, as they move unrestricted from farm to farm. Badgers and deer are travelling wherever they want, when they want. I know of one farmer, and I will not tell the Minister of State where or who he is, but he never went down and he was in the middle of four or five farmers who were constantly going down. They would go down and be clear for a few years and then they would go down again. In one year alone, this small farmer snared 103 badgers. He never went down. These were big, small and baby badgers. He culled 103 in one year alone. I ask the Minister of State and Department to dramatically increase the culling of deer and badgers. The national parks and forests are harbouring the deer in a big way. The farmers cannot follow them into those places. If we have sheep, we must have something to keep them in because a cattle fence will not do. I ask that these entities fence their places off, so at least deer cannot come out of them into neighbouring farms spreading the disease.
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I thank the Minister of State for his reply. It is very clear that we and the Department are not doing enough. If we keep going the way we have gone for the past 46 years and we do not change something, it will be the same story for whoever is here in 50 years' time. There is no point in the world going around vaccinating badgers. We do not know whether they had TB, whether they were infected with it already or what the story is. The fact is they need to be culled. I was getting to the point that the big infestation of deer is in the 26,000 acres of national park. They are able to roam from there all through east Kerry. They have spread to State and private forestries. We must fence our own lands to keep our animals off the road and to stop them going into the neighbours. The damage deer are doing to cars and people on the road has to be considered. Sadly, seven people were killed in the past two weeks. It does matter how a person is killed - whether it is by a deer, another vehicle or whatever - they are dead. They go down on the skin test. We are told that when they are slaughtered in the factory, they are clear and there are no lesions or whatever. How is that? That needs to be explained to farmers. It is terrible. I know a farmer called Mikey Joe. He probably has a name for every cow he has. When they come in to be milked twice a day, he knows their names. When a cow goes down, he will know that many of them will turn out to be clean when they are slaughtered.
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That is devastating for farmers. They cannot understand it. We rarely hear about an inconclusive animal. The numbers are getting bigger.
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Before it was one, two or three but now if a fella has 60 cows, 26 go down. I apologise to the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach.
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There was another cow called Haughey.
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