Kerry councillor slams bovine TB scheme as ‘completely null and void’ after local farmers left devastated

By Alastair Tibbs, The Kerryman

The bovine tuberculosis (TB) eradication scheme is “completely null and void” a Kerry councillor has claimed after local farmers lost nearly half their cattle to the disease.

Both Councillor Dan McCarthy and Councillor Johnny Healy-Rae said the scheme isn’t working and demanded it was overhauled.

Farmers in south Kerry have been hit with a series TB outbreaks this year, with one farmer losing over 40 cows out of his herd of approximately 100, Cllr Healy-Rae claimed.

The TB eradication scheme is run by the department of agriculture and includes various measures such as annual cow testing for TB, payment for culled animals and a badger vaccination programme.

“The scheme that they’re running has been going since 1962 and its not working. The TB eradication scheme is completely null and void. There’s no improvement, it’s getting worse,” said Cllr McCarthy.

“It’s costing the country hundreds of millions and it’s costing the farmers their livelihoods…we know it needs to be eradicated, but it just doesn’t seem to be happening.”

The budget for the programme came to just over €100m last year, the highest annual amount to date, but disease cases are now at a 15 year high.

Individual farmers in south Kerry report losing up to €10,000 in the last month due to TB outbreaks. While culled animals are compensated for by the government up to €3,000, with bulls and pedigree stock bulls receiving higher reimbursement, many sick bovines would fetch higher prices on the market. Thus when farmers are replacing their herds, they can incur significant loses.

The cost of complying with the TB eradication scheme creates further difficulties, carrying out tests and other measures, which the Irish Farm Accounts Co-operative reported costing farmers €151.5m in 2024.

Cllr McCarthy also questioned the badger vaccination programme’s effectiveness, given the landscape in Kerry.

In 2024, 3,800 badgers were vaccinated and 7,319 culled, out of a known 47,000 badger setts in the country.

“Down here here’s too much cover for the deer and the badgers. There’s no way they can get to all of them. They said the deer doesn’t carry it – I find it very hard to believe that they’re not. They should be vaccinating the deer as well as the badgers,” said Cllr McCarthy.

While huge sums of money are being spent, Cllr Healy-Rae feels questions marks remain over the actual vaccine itself.

“We’re vaccinating badgers but we’re not testing them for TB and we’re not coming back to see if the vaccinations work. Obviously, the vaccination doesn’t work because if it does, why wouldn’t it work on cattle?

“In other words we’re not dealing with the problem which we feel predominantly around here is badgers and deer. We’re dealing with cattle which is the secondary problem, we’re not dealing with the primary problem which is the badgers and deers that are spreading it.

“This thing of vaccinating badgers instead of taking them out, which used to be the case, that’s only to appease animal rights. We feel they have no understanding in the world of what they’re taking about…it was basically brought in to satisfy the green party. We all what they’re opinion is on farmers - they’re doing their best to get rid of them.”

Adding to farmers woes is the current process of dealing with an outbreak of TB.

When the disease is detected, herds must be quarantined for 60 days before testing, and if negative, after another 60 days and a negative test the cows can be released.

If the disease persists this can result in herds spending enormous amounts of time in isolation and out of productive use.

Cllr McCarthy said some Kerry cattle have been locked up for nearly 18 months.

“The whole programme must be overhauled. The way it is at the moment, its not going in right direction. If it was decreasing at 5pc a year or 3pc, you’d get there. But the its not, it’s going up,” said Cllr McCarthy.