THE Minister for Agriculture, Martin Heydon, has been asked this week by a Galway farm leader to carry out a root-and-branch review of the entire Bovine TB situation across the country as breakdowns continue to spread.

Unwelcome increases in reactor numbers over the past two years; problems with the disease within dairy herds; question marks over the science behind the testing methods; and the role of wildlife in the spread of the disease; now need to be ‘looked at in-depth’  according to Galway IFA Chair Stephen Canavan.

Late last year, Teagasc researchers pointed out that an increasing number of TB restricted farms were in dairy herds, possibly linked to increasing herd sizes and closer air-space proximity during milking.

“There are simply too many things going wrong with the whole approach to Bovine TB. It seems to be a situation that’s going from bad to worse and really it’s time that Minister Heydon showed real leadership on this problem which has dogged Irish farming for the past 60-years,” Stephen Canavan told the Farming Tribune.

There has been a dramatic increase in reactor numbers through 2023 and 2024 with no indication of that trend changing in 2025, according to the latest figures – fears have been expressed that reactor numbers across Irish farms could be close to 60,000 this year.

Stephen Canavan also stated there were serious doubts over the effectiveness of the TB skin tests with indications that some infected animals were being missed out on – leading to a spread of infections in herds in the months following a so-called clear test.

At the 2024 National Dairy Conference held in Limerick last November, three Teagasc specialists – Damien Barrett, Niamh Field and Derek O’Donoghue – pointed to ‘issues’ with the TB skin test.  According to the Teagasc experts, for every 100 infected animals with TB, the skin test would only identify 80 as ‘truly infected’ with 20 ‘undetected’, the latter categorised as ‘false negatives’.

Stephen Canavan said that there was a real crisis across Irish farming as regards the whole TB issue, with not alone no progress being made, but instead the situation was ‘getting far worse with each passing year’. “There’s an old definition of stupidity – someone doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This is what’s happening as regards our TB Eradication Scheme,” said Stephen Canavan.

He added that the IFA had drawn up a series of very specific and well-researched measures which could make a huge difference in tackling the Bovine TB problem but the response from the Department had been very disappointing.

Last month, IFA National Animal Health Chair, TJ Maheer, described the response of the Department to the IFA proposed measures at the last TB Forum meeting as ‘shambolic’ with poorly thought-out proposals which weren’t even circulated to the stakeholders.

According to the Agriland website, the number of reactors between February 11, 2024, and February 9, 2025, stood at 41,318 – the comparable figure for the previous corresponding 12-months was 29,194.

Pictured: Minister for Agriculture, Martin Heydon