Controlling TB in cattle is about to get a lot more expensive
Controlling the disease since the 1950s has cost the State billions. Picture: iStock
With EU funding for bovine TB eradication in Ireland expected to cease after 2023, the scheme is in danger of again becoming "the greatest financial scandal in the history of the State", as it was described in the mid-1980s by Ken Whitaker, the ex-Secretary of the Department of Finance who was said to be the most influential public servant in the history of the State.
From 1954, when the eradication programme started, until the mid-1980s, eradication cost £1bn (€1.27bn), leading Whitaker to say a larger sum had gone down the drain to no avail than any other he could recall.
