The latest TB figures from the Department of Agriculture paint a very dismal picture on the disease.

More than 41,000 reactors have been identified over the last 12 months, close to 6,100 herds are locked up, and the herd incidence rate has topped 6%.

But statistics, shocking as they may be, cannot convey the hardship that TB has visited on ordinary farm families.

Take Declan O’Meara for example, from Lorrha in north Tipperary.

The family has lost 93 cows and 60 bullocks to TB since the disease struck the herd in April 2021.

At the time the O’Mearas were milking 120 cows and had hopes of continuing to grow the herd to 150.

Fifty-eight cows and 21 heifers are due to calve down on the O’Meara holding this spring, but that could all change, as they are due to have another TB test in February.

The O’Mearas run a mixed dairy and beef operation. The dairy herd is carried on the home farm, with the bull calves reared to beef on an out-farm four miles from the main holding.

Declan O’Meara is convinced that their troubles with TB are wildlife related, as very few animals were bought in.

“We’d be pretty much an closed herd. We bought no dairy stock since 1980. Everything we had was home bred,” he explained.

“And anything we bought was to fill up numbers on the out-farm; they wouldn’t have any contact with the dairy herd,” he added.

However, this cautious approach failed to save the O’Mearas from the ravages of TB.

Between April 2021 and summer 2023 the family lost 51 cows and 27 steers to the disease.

The herd eventually went clear in 2023, but Declan described this as “very much a false dawn”.

In March 2024 the herd went down again, with 42 cows and 33 bullocks lost through the year.

He estimates that the disruption and lost revenue associated with TB has cost the farm close to €80,000 over the last four years.

And, while he has been satisfied with the compensation rates available for the animals that were taken out due to TB, O’Meara maintained that he’d “prefer to be without the compensation and have the cattle”.

“We don’t want to be depopulated. We have been breeding our own stock since 1980. We sent exactly 30l/cow to the creamery the morning in April 2021 that we were reading the [first failed TB] test. So, we had a decent herd,” he said.

Farmer calls for a much greater focus on wildlife link to TB

Asked what changes need to be made to the TB scheme to make it more effective, O’Meara said there had to be a greater focus on wildlife.

“As far as I’m concerned, wildlife brought the infection into our herd first day,” he insisted.

“We need more investigation of the role of wildlife – badgers and deer. We have had badgers trapped in the area, and they had TB. We also had an increase in the deer population in the last two years. So, there has to be work done on both of those,” O’Meara said.

Longer-term, he maintained that Ireland will have to look at vaccinating for TB.

“To my mind vaccination is the only viable solution. That’s where we have to be looking,” O’Meara said.

Returning to his own situation, O’Meara’s focus is on their next test in February.

“We’re living in hope that we’ll be clear; that’s all we can do.”