Paula Hynes: We need to learn from the Bluetongue outbreak

A ban on livestock imports from the UK has been in place since the autumn of 2023 when the first cases of Bluetongue were detected in the UK, writes Cork dairy farmer Paula Hynes.

Zandra with her newborn Angus bull calf. Picture: Paula Hynes

The hope for us, and indeed the entire UK livestock industry earlier this year, would have been that Bluetongue restrictions in the UK would be lifted this autumn or, at the very least, they would apply for regionalisation, where livestock from non-high-risk areas could be exported to the island of Ireland, including Northern Ireland.

For those of you who don’t know what the signs of the Bluetongue virus are in bovines, sheep and other ruminants, it can cause sudden severe drop in milk, abortion, redness around the eyes, mouth and at the top of the hooves, loss of appetite, and nasal discharge.