More information on a herd's risk category, mandatory blood testing in larger herds, and pre-movement testing are among the fresh measures proposed by the Government to better prevent the spread of bovine tuberculosis (TB).
Around 30 proposals in total were discussed today at an emergency meeting between the Department of Agriculture and key stakeholders, which included farming organisations, cattle mart operators, and the National Parks & Wildlife Service.
It comes as levels of the disease on Irish farms have increased significantly in recent years.
Over 6,000 farms were affected by a bovine TB outbreak last year.
More than 41,000 cattle were detected with the disease - a 44% jump on 2023 - and a further rise is expected this year.
The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) recently commissioned a report that indicates that TB is costing farmers over €150m a year, while the Government is spending around €100m annually in dealing with the disease on farms.
IFA Animal Health Chair TJ Maher said the Government "has to address the unsustainable burden of the TB programme on farmers".
"We need to see a plan from the minister that will address the shortcomings in the existing programme and reduce the current costs on farmers.
"The last time we exceeded 40,000 TB reactors in a calendar year was in the late 1990s. Meaningful action was taken to address disease levels in susceptible wildlife at that time and we reduced this number by the mid-2010s to fewer than 15,000. Similar actions are required now," Mr Maher said.
Meanwhile, the President of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) Denis Drennan said "there simply have to be real proposals that will achieve real results and that will be borne evenly and by all the parties to this ongoing scandal.
"There has been a negative reaction to the proposals tabled by the department that loaded new regulations and costs onto the farmers exclusively with the other stakeholders being permitted to carry on doing what they always have been doing - without any change in practice or even attitude," said Mr Drennan.
Early detection of TB cases, and improving biosecurity measures were the main focus of the proposals, which Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon said are "based on the best scientific and veterinary advice available, which will be debated and discussed in detail ... and have the best interests of farmers, farm families and the agri-sector in mind".
In 2019 the Government shifted its TB prevention strategy away from culling wildlife, mainly badgers, to vaccinating them.
However, the Department of Agriculture said that last year more than 7,000 badgers were still culled - the highest number culled in any one year to date.
In addition to vaccination, officials are now also pushing for tighter controls on cattle movements.
However, farmers want more of the wildlife responsible for spreading the disease - mainly badgers and deer - to be culled.
No decisions were made at today's emergency meeting which Department officials described as "constructive", and it is understood the minister will decide on the next steps in the coming days.
