Bluetongue: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-24 ============================================================ Paraic Brady (FG), Agricultural Panel The Minister is welcome to the House once more. It seems that we have him in this House frequently to discuss agricultural issues. He correctly said that bluetongue has caused much stress and strain for the farming community, which is correct. Bluetongue is spread by the infection of a biting midge. Thankfully, Ireland, as he rightly said, was one of the last countries in the EU to lose its disease-free status, last year. I pay tribute to his Department for keeping it off the island because everybody knows the price of weanlings last year, how many cattle were exported to Europe, and how sought-after our weanlings were. That is thanks to the Department keeping it off this island. Unfortunately, it has come here. It was going to be here sooner or later. At least we had the winter months to prepare for it. I welcome that the vaccine is freely available. Is the Department advising farmers to take up the vaccine and vaccinate all animals, including sheep and cattle, or is it only in areas where infection has been detected? I welcome that the Department is doing more testing at the moment and that is why we are seeing more cases. Is the advice from this House that everybody on the island of Ireland should take up the vaccine and protect their livelihood, or should it just be in the areas where we have seen outbreaks? I would like to throw a couple of curveballs at the Minister, unfortunately. I should probably have put them to him before we came in here. He mentioned a derogation among member states. We have a situation where cattle are not allowed to be freely traded between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland. However, trade between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland works both ways because the period when we have cattle shows is coming. Men in County Longford rang me last Tuesday to say that they had bought cattle in Northern Ireland before the outbreak occurred. They are sitting on holdings where they have paid a lot of money to show cattle, heifers and bullocks that have been tested. Is a derogation possibly needed between North and South? Might we have something in place if the Minister, Andrew Muir and the Minister, Deputy Heydon, meet? The Minister might update this House on that. As he knows, there is a soft Border. It would alleviate problems North and South if it was rectified. Losing our disease-free status is not the end of the world because it seems that our EU counterparts have relaxed the measures around bluetongue. The Minister might update us on that. We will be the beneficiaries of that relaxation come next July or August. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-24/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-24