THE Galway farmer – close to the new motorway project – who had his dairy herd decimated by a TB outbreak last year, never wants anyone else to suffer the same fate.
Galway IFA Chairman and dairy farmers, Pat Murphy from Ardrahan, said that ‘it was beyond coincidence’ for so many outbreaks of TB to be occurring during major land disturbance projects.
“For myself and other farmers in the South Galway area, the damage has been done and we now have to pick up the pieces, but I really don’t want to see any other farmer across the country go through what we went through.
“Where natural wildlife habitats are interfered with, and where the badgers are disturbed, as sure as night follows day, farmers in the area will pay the price in terms of TB infections in their dairy or cattle herds,” said Pat Murphy.
In total, Pat Murphy lost a total of 91 animals with bovine TB – his milking herd reduced from 88 cows to twelve ‘practically overnight’ – and he is now looking at well into this year before he hopefully will have a clear test.
“When the natural habitat of the badger is disturbed there will be consequences for the farmers in that general area. This is something that must be factored into the whole equation of those major infrastructural projects,” said Pat Murphy.
He said that the trauma of seeing two articulated trucks arriving into his farmyard before 5am one morning to bring away his herd of dairy cows for slaughter was not one that would leave his mind, or his family’s, for a long, long time.
“It is absolutely devastating to build up a dairy herd so carefully over the years and then just to see it wiped away in one TB test.”
See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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