The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has said that an additional €20.5 million provided for animal health as part of Budget 2025 needs to be used effectively.
The additional funding, confirmed by Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue this week, will provide €10.5 million for targeted bovine tuberculosis (TB) testing.
A further €10 million is earmarked for Targeted Advisory Service on Animal Health (TASAH), Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) and Infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR) programmes.
Animal health
IFA National Animal Health Committee chair TJ Maher said the additional funding can have a positive impact for farmers in disease eradication programmes if used effectively.
He said that a fully-funded and well-resourced bovine TB programme is critical to make any progress in reducing the levels of the disease in the country.
“Central to this is the resources and approach taken by the Wildlife Control Programme. Both are falling short of what is required and must be reviewed urgently,” he said.
Maher said that “farmers have done the heavy lifting” when it comes to BVD, having spent over €120 million in the national programme to date.
“It is now time for the department of agriculture to step in and take on the remaining testing costs in the programme from 2025 onwards.
“Until the costs of the BVD programme are removed from farmers, discussions around an IBR programme will not advance.
“It is unreasonable and unacceptable to expect farmers to commence yet another programme under the auspices of Animal Health Ireland (AHI) until BVD is off the table,” he said.
Maher said that the additional funding provided in this week’s budget “can easily deliver freedom for farmers from the costs of the BVD programme and in doing so will create the basis to advance discussions on IBR”.
The IFA Animal Health chair added that AHI must ensure this additional funding is used for the BVD programme, which he said “is the clearly expressed position of IFA and the BVD Implementation Group”.