“Just because an area is for badger vaccination doesn’t mean there’s no culling in that area,” according to deputy chief veterinary officer at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), Dr. Eoin Ryan.

This was at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food on biosecurity that took place yesterday (January 14).

Dr. Ryan made these clarifications in response to a question from Deputy Danny Healy Rae.

Deputy Healy Rae asked: “Had you any role in deciding areas in which the badgers are to be vaccinated [for TB] and [in] which area are the badgers to be culled?”  

Dr. Ryan responded: “The badger vaccinated control programme covers the whole country.

"In certain areas, badgers are removed, they’re culled; in other areas they’re vaccinated. A lot of them are tested before they’re vaccinated, and if they test positive to TB they’re culled.

"Even if there was a vaccination area, they can still be culled within that area.”

TB

Separately, farmers have stated that current TB compensation ceilings are "hopelessly out of date" and should be removed altogether.

This was among the issues raised with the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon earlier this week (Tuesday, January 13) at the Irish Farmers' Association's (IFA) annual general meeting (AGM).

IFA president Francie Gorman said that "market valuation should mean market valuation".

He added that if farmers are "to have confidence in what is being done" to tackle TB, the valuation ceilings "should be removed".

Gorman stressed that farmers want to see a "greater level of efficiency" in how TB schemes are administered.

"The idea that farmers are waiting up to months for compensation is not good enough," he said.