NEWS

MLAs hit out at TB strategy
By Steven Moore

DARD is proposing to spend the next five years holding talks about bovine TB - after which it hopes to have some idea how to eradicate the disease.
Its TB Strategy, as revealed to the Stormont Agriculture Committee, involves three strands of talks, a stakeholders committee, several studies and the monitoring of research carried out elsewhere.
It is also proposing to carry out a limited cull of badgers in a trial in County Down.
Assistant Secretary Colette McMaster told MLAs the new strategy was significant in that previously only the control of the disease had been attempted.
However, she admitted that none of those consulted held out much hope that eradication could be achieved, that there was gaps in DARD's knowledge with existing research being inconsistent, and that at this time it was not possible to say how or when the disease could be eliminated.
Bovine TB costs the department £27 million a year in compensating farmers for lost animals and committee members were far from impressed with this strategy to reduce that.
DUP committee chaiman Ian Paisley describe it as a "multi-million pound management programme" rather than a plan of eradication while his predecessor in the post, William McCrea, described it as a "absolute do nothing policy."


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