Bluetongue: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-24 ============================================================ Martin Heydon (FG), Kildare South That is the point the Senator was making and I understand that. My officials understand the urgency regarding North-South trade. Senators Daly and Brady and others have referred to the show period that is coming up. That is a big challenge. An awful lot of important trade happens both ways. There is urgency about finding a solution to North-South trade. EU regulations dictate the derogations that can be applied. These options need to be carefully considered. There is no option without risk and it is important to make that point again, because there are disease spread implications and a derogation applies more broadly too. We are looking at every option and in an ideal world, we would work in consultation with the North and act together. That has served us well, by and large. We are one epidemiological island. Disease control does not recognise invisible borders. We have seen this in working closely together on the avian influenza outbreaks. It was helpful to be able to introduce housing orders together. With the proliferation of the poultry industry in the Border region, that was particularly important. The Minister, Andrew Muir, and I are in regular contact. We met in Donegal last Thursday. My team of veterinary officials and his team of veterinary officials are in regular contact. They were talking earlier today. We work on that. In response to Senator Collins, surveillance has been increased. It is risk-based too. We have a number of different ways, as I outlined in my opening address, of addressing risk, with the testing of culled cows, the testing of animals which have died for unknown reasons and in other areas where there are symptoms. Passive surveillance of all-age cattle in slaughter plants is a key area. Active surveillance of live animals in areas where modelling has demonstrated possible incursion during the autumn and has identified the outbreaks in contiguous herds. Herds that were next door to the first herd in Wexford are where the next cases came from. It is the most likely place, if it was within the midge activity last September or early October in that area. You would expect, if it is going to be found anywhere, that it will be found on the neighbouring farm. There is surveillance by regional veterinary laboratories. I pay tribute to staff on the ground who were leading the charge and working closely with private veterinary practitioners and our farmers. Sampling cows post abortion for bluetongue where calves have been slipped is a possible clinical sign too and how we identify it in some cases. That sampling has been effective. I encourage farmers to submit samples to my regional veterinary laboratories. Low herd prevalence and between-herd prevalence makes the detection of every case difficult. We need to be mindful of that. We need to take every opportunity where there are signs. The first 11 positive cases we had in the country were all atypical. This is not simple. Not every animal that has this is showing all of the symptoms, which is a challenge. Where an animal has slipped a calf, unfortunately, in an incident where it did not seem there was any other reason, it is important to get that tested so we know where it is, because that information can help us in the time ahead. It is an evolving situation at a European level too. There are other areas where active surveillance is being rolled out, including east Cork, counties Waterford, Kilkenny, Wicklow and Louth. That is based on modelling from the UCD CVERA work. We have many analytics of this. People would not have realised that officials in my Department were in close contact with Met Éireann all last summer. We were monitoring wind patterns during hot spells, not necessarily here but when it was hot in the UK and when it was hot in France. We looked at the wind modelling and the risk of plumes of midges coming to Ireland. That information and those wind patterns are showing where the highest risk areas are. We are actively trying to identify them and get as good a picture of that as possible. In answer to Senator Daly's point, while this is a real worry and concern for farmers, the response to this has been relatively calm. The Senator made the point that I have not been criticised. I take that as a nod to the work officials in my Department have done. I agree with the Senator that the response has been good because farmers are reassured that everything that can be done is being done by my officials. There is real collaboration between farmers, private veterinary practitioners and our regional veterinary laboratories all around the country. My officials in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine are co-ordinating that. Working with farmers and all stakeholders is important. We all need to keep doing that together. It is as it is and we have to deal with it and try to get the best outcome possible. This is an evolving situation at a European level and my Department continues to engage with industry and counterparts not just in Northern Ireland but beyond to effectively manage this disease, and learn from those areas and parts of Europe that have had this for longer, because that is giving us clear data too. Serotype 3, which is what we have here, is the most common across Europe. It is not the only one across Europe. We have seen other serotypes. That is why decisions about derogations are important because we do not want other serotypes here. It is bad enough to have one. The presence of bluetongue in Ireland for the first time, along with outbreaks of the highly pathogenic avian influenza in November 2025, are a really timely reminder of the ever-present threat to Ireland from animal diseases. There have also been outbreaks of various other exotic diseases across the European Union during 2025 and 2026, including lumpy skin disease, foot and mouth and other serotypes of the bluetongue virus, as I outlined. Continued biosecurity and vigilance against the threat of these diseases are more important now than ever. We did not get to mention it today but in our debate in the Dáil last week, the role of climate change was reflected on. We are seeing the impact of animal diseases and exotic diseases in plants which never impacted here before. That is unfortunately part of the nature of climate change. Industry co-operation has been vital to Ireland's disease management so far and I hope we can continue to receive this support and co-operation as we work together to minimise these risks. I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach and the House for giving us the opportunity to debate this today. --- 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