On Tuesday, the Department published a “Blueprint for Eradication” of bovine TB in NI, put together by the TB Partnership Steering Group (TBPSG).

The origins of the group go back to a review of TB by chief vet Brian Dooher, completed in November 2024.

Included among nearly 40 proposals was one for the establishment of a new TB partnership that would bring together representatives from across farming, auctioneers, veterinary and wildlife organisations.

In his initial response to the Dooher review, Agriculture Minister Andrew Muir requested that the new group be formed in January 2025 and produce a delivery plan by the end of March.

To be fair, it was a very tight time frame and, given the competing views of group members, it would be unrealistic to expect detailed consensus across all the issues.

In the end, that delivery plan has slipped into April and unsurprisingly, what has been produced is aspirational in nature. At this stage it looks like the group has achieved little other than to accept it needs to agree on proposals that might never be implemented in NI.

While we should give the new TB steering group time to make progress, it is understandable that many farmers simply see it as a means of further delaying difficult political decisions around wildlife intervention.

Successive

We have been here many times before and successive ministers have avoided this thorny issue, opting instead for further research or a detailed review.

In the last 20 years, we have had TB stakeholder groups, a number of new strategies and spent millions on research including the test, vaccinate or remove (TVR) approach to badger control.

There was also a high-level TB Strategic Partnership Group formed in 2013, which reported in 2016, followed by the TB Eradication Partnership in 2018.

Over this time, a lot of very useful work was done. However, the annual number of bovine TB reactors in NI has increased by nearly 150%.