132. Deputy Roderic O'Gorman asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the reason his Department does not collect data on incidences in the egg industry of osteoporosis, peritonitis, egg binding and uterine prolapse; if he is aware whether a Government, local authority or any other body is actively engaged in the collection of this data; if no data is collected on these incidences in laying hens, the reason he consistently states that the highest possible welfare standards are maintained in the industry, if he does not possess data on illness, disease and premature death in the industry. [67409/26]

My Department does not routinely collect data on incidences of the specific conditions raised by the Deputy in the course of regulatory inspections or during post-mortem examinations conducted as part of meat inspection because these are not statutory diseases on which data must be recorded by law. My Department does record data on post-mortem findings in meat factories under general headings of 'ante-mortem injury', 'non-infectious systemic disease' and 'generalised infectious conditions'. This data is not collated centrally as all potential follow-up action and investigation in the case of increased incidences of these conditions is initiated locally by my Department.

My Department also records data on the cause of death of poultry submitted by private veterinary practitioners to our Regional Veterinary Laboratories as part of endemic disease surveillance. This data is derived primarily from passive surveillance and is collated nationally and published in our All-island Animal Disease Surveillance Report.

As some of the conditions listed by the Deputy are not specific to a given disease or are typically a result of a clinical diagnosis in the live bird, data on these findings is typically not recorded in this report.

Mortality on poultry farms must be recorded by the producer and these records are inspected by my Department in the course of official controls. Evidence of raised mortality on farm or changing trends in mortality will be queried and further investigated where warranted.