asked the Minister for Agriculture the action he will take in view of the increasing cost of administering and operating the TB and brucellosis eradication scheme.

As I announced recently, my Department are engaged in a comprehensive review of all aspects of the disease eradication programme. Examination of the costs involved in administering and operating the programme will be included in the review.

Would the Minister agree, despite questions being raised on this issue over the years, that the cost of administering the scheme is continually increasing even with the fall-off in the number of herds?

As the Deputy is well aware, because we have two schemes running parallel, the TB and brucellosis schemes, we have to keep records on 181,000 herds which extend to about 7,000,000 cattle. This in itself causes certain staffing problems. One of the reasons the staffing has to be as high as it is is that the two schemes are running parallel.

Would the Minister not agree that, with the sophisticated equipment, such as computers, which is available at the moment, the staff has increased from what it was when the scheme was set up by about 50 per cent? Is it not time this was looked into very closely to see where savings can be made? Would the Minister not agree that compensatory payments are more important than excessive administrative costs?

I would like to remind the Deputy, in case we get a slanted view of the administrative costs involved, that in 1982 the cost of administration was £8.4 million or 28 per cent of the gross expenditure on the programme and in 1983 it was about £8.7 million. This shows that there is not such a great increase in the actual expenditure in the two years.

Would the Minister agree that over the years the number of staff has increased and their salaries did not decrease. There was a continuing increase in staff from about 800 to 1,200 administering the scheme.

The overall costs in the last number of years have not risen, as I outlined.