Bluetongue: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-24 ============================================================ Joanne Collins (SF), Agricultural Panel It is nice to have the Minister back in the House again. Not for one minute is this anybody's fault. Nobody can predict a midge coming over the Border and infecting our animals but it is an all-island issue. I echo what I have heard across the floor. It is an all-island issue, and it needs to be tackled on an all-island basis. Not having exports North and South is just not sustainable when there are farmers on each side of the Border with the exact same disease. I completely understand the Minister's point that importing jurisdictions decide on derogations, but the Government has the responsibility to drive an all-island solution on this and to raise it urgently at an EU level so that animal health certification reflects the reality on the ground, which is we do not have a strong Border on this island. It is virtually up in the air and when it comes to this kind of disease, it would not matter if there was a strong Border, we could still not stop it. We are also calling for a scaling up of testing nationwide, particularly ahead of the warmer months when temperatures go above 12°C, so waiting until the middle of summer is not an option. We need to get this done as quickly as possible. I would also like to see a clear and proactive vaccination strategy. We do not yet know if this is going to be mandatory or widespread or how many have to do it. When we talk about vaccinations we will have to take into account the significant cost to the farmer. From what I can gather it is €2.50 a head for sheep and €9 a head for cattle. Depending on herd size that is going to be a significant cost. If we are going to be looking at vaccinations the State will have to come up with some kind of a scheme to share the financial burden. Our farmers cannot take much more of a financial cost on top of what they already put up with. As was mentioned earlier, information is critical. Our farmers need a clear roadmap as to how they are going to manage this. They need information on spotting the symptoms, the biosecurity measures, animal movement, and again, the vaccination timelines. It would be nice to see a resourced information campaign that could be put out there for these farmers. We cannot ignore the wider context that Ireland's agrifood reputation is under pressure. We have had the controversies about Bord Bia, trade uncertainty and rising costs. If bluetongue is mishandled it risks becoming another blow to confidence in the sector which we just cannot afford in this country. We have such a high standard and such an amazing food sector that we want to get this right. That is what it comes down to. I think everybody in this room wants to get this right and as I said at the start, no blame is being laid at anyone's feet for this. This is not something we could stop coming in but it is definitely something on which we can put our heads together and come up with the right solutions that work for everybody; for ourselves, the Government, the farmers and the consumer. We need to ensure that the consumer understands it is not a health issue. For the farmers it is going to come down to a cost issue more than anything when they see the costs going up and are not able to do their trade. Some farmers in the North in the South would have already sold cattle and they are stuck with that stock. They cannot get rid of it because we have that jurisdiction issue. It would be nice to hear some comments from the Minister on the North-South issue and see if we could do this on an all-island basis. --- 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