Minister Muir opens All-Island TB Research Symposium

Date published: 16 January 2026

DAERA Minister, Andrew Muir, has today opened an all-island research symposium on bovine tuberculosis (bTB).

This is the second such meeting after an inaugural event held in Celbridge Co. Kildare in December 2024.

It brings together officials, scientists and academics from both North and South, working across animal health science and research to share new insights, develop collaborations and help to inform policy makers tasked with eradication of bTB.

Bovine TB incidence levels across the island are high, with 6% of herds in the Republic and 11% of herds in Northern Ireland affected, with the disease imposing a significant burden on both farmers and government.

It is widely recognised as one of the most challenging animal health issues faced by both governments and wider farming industries. Therefore, further developments in science and new scientific approaches will be essential to allow progress to be made on disease control and, ultimately, on the ambition to reach bTB eradication.

DAERA Minister Andrew Muir said, “Since taking up post I have been impressed by the strong and continued collaboration between scientists, academics and veterinarians across the island working on tackling Bovine TB. Multidisciplinary North-South collaboration has previously yielded important insights into TB persistence and spread.  Future collaboration on this shared problem will yield further benefits and will contribute to the successful delivery of many key objectives detailed in the TB Partnership Steering Group’s Blueprint for TB Eradication, which I launched in April last year.”

Minister Martin Heydon, from the Dept of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, welcomed the second all-island research symposium on bovine tuberculosis.  He said “The symposium directly contributes to two of the actions of the recently published TB Action Plan in that it facilitates North South collaboration and it identifies areas for future research. More broadly, this collaborative approach to TB research will create synergies which will streamline research efforts providing evidence for future policy interventions necessary for the eradication of bovine TB”.

Some key examples of the research work that has been undertaken by both DAERA / AFBI and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in the South include:

• Epidemiological modelling has revealed important risk factors for farm breakdowns and explored the impact of wildlife interventions.
• Social science is identifying human behavioural barriers to better disease control and securing stakeholder buy-in.
• Ecological modelling has revealed much about wildlife behaviour and how it influences inter-species disease transmission.
• Quantitative genetics has identified variation in cattle that contributes to TB susceptibility and infectiousness, providing us with the tools to breed more resistant and less risky cattle.
• Immunological research has improved disease diagnosis and informed on the efficacy of wildlife vaccination.  
• Pathogen genomics allows us to track sources of infection and identify routes of transmission between hosts and territories, informing on their relative importance.