Animal Diseases
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29
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Martin Kenny (SF), Sligo-Leitrim

I thank the Minister and I appreciate all of the work that has been done. When I ask where it came from, there is the monitoring of the wind but we are in the winter and the weather is very cold. The likelihood of it coming from midges blown across the Irish Sea is probably minimal, I expect. How much investigation of this has been done? A lot of straw is being imported. Could the disease come with midges in the straw? These are the kinds of questions farmers ask me. People are perplexed that it is here at this time of the year. While I doubt it is the case, is there a connection with the outbreak in County Down before Christmas? That is very unlikely seeing as the cases were in two opposite ends of the country. People would like to get information in respect of this. We tell farmers to be vigilant but what do they need to be vigilant for? This is really what we need to focus on. The Minister did not get to speak about the vaccines and where that is at. Perhaps we will hear about it at the meeting later.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-29