Bovine TB: Fraud continues to be a problem

Speaking at the committee meeting Mr William Irwin (DUP, Newry and Armagh) asked the minister if he was aware that a new test had been identified in England that, “is seemingly very positive in taking out all the reactors” in tackling Bovine TB

Mr Irwin asked: “Minister, are you prepared to look at new technologies or new tests? The test that we have today is not perfect and, of course, takes out only something like 75% of reactors.

“The difficulty is that it has been the same test, or a similar test, for 50, 60, 70 years.

“One would have thought that, in this day and age, there should be new technology and new tests coming forward to deal with the issue.

“I was told just the other night that there is a new test.”

Mr Poots replied: “We will be very happy to look at that. There is latency in terms of TB residing in an animal that is not picked up in a test and is then picked up in future.

“I have had personal experience of buying animals from a farm that had TB and was cleared of TB, and consequently those animals presented with TB at a later point.

“It has nothing whatsoever to do with the wildlife population.

“There is no point in seeking to tackle this problem in one way. If we are going to tackle TB, we need to do it in a series of ways.”

Fraud, added Mr Poots, continued to be a challenge for the department.

He said: “There are a very small number of farmers who are engaging in fraud when it comes to this.

“I believe that we need to be much tougher on these individuals, and I would prefer they were actually not farming, as what they are doing is grossly wrong. We will be looking at the area of fraud.

“The testing regime is obviously something which has not changed much over the years. I want to know if there are better systems for identifying TB and if we can implement them.”

The minister concluded: “The answer to your question is yes.”