Over €157 million has been earmarked as part of Budget 2026 to tackle the increasing rate of bovine tuberculosis (TB) in Ireland.

Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe and Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers are today (Tuesday, October 7) presenting Budget 2026 in Dáil Éireann.

The overall budget allocation for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) for 2026 will stand at just over €2.3 billion, an uplift of €170 million.

The government said that the recent Bovine TB (bTB) Action Plan is a core pillar of Budget 2026.

Therefore, the budget allocation towards bovine TB will increase by €85 million this year, bringing the total to over €157 million.

This funding boost is "to ensure the effective implementation of the action plan".

"To ensure this funding is delivered efficiently it will be accompanied by a lean review of the bovine TB (bTB) programme aimed at improving efficiencies in the management and administration of the programme through enhanced streamlining of existing work processes at individual Registered Veterinary Office (RVO) level," budget documents confirmed.

The funding allocation will allow DAFM continue to undertake nine million bovine TB tests on cattle.

In 2024, over 6,000 farms were affected by a bovine TB outbreak. Herd incidence for the devastating disease has increased to 6.04% in 2024, up from 4.31% in 2022.

The cost of running the national bovine TB programme stood at over €100 million in 2024, an increase of 35% on the previous year.

Up to the end of July this year, €61 million had been spent on the TB programme.

Last month, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon officially launched the new action plan on bovine TB.

The plan seeks to help herds remain free of the disease, detect infection as early as possible, and avoid further cases where there is a breakdown.

There is a focus on reducing the impact of high-risk animals in spreading the disease, along with wildlife measures and improving on-farm biosecurity.

The plan aims to address the current high levels of the disease in the country under the following five measures:

Support herds free of bovine TB to remain free;
Reduce the impact of wildlife on the spread of bovine TB;
Detect and eliminate bovine TB infection as early as possible in herds with a breakdown and avoid a future breakdown;
Help farmers to improve all areas of on-farm biosecurity;
Reduce the impact of known high-risk animals in spreading bovine TB.
The measures are aiming to target both transmission between wildlife and cattle and transmission between cattle.

These measures will be underpinned by some 30 different actions.

Speaking today, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon said he is "acutely aware of the emotional and financial impacts of bovine TB on farmers, their families and rural Ireland".

"I have secured an increased budget allocation of €85 million for TB in 2026, and this will result in a total budget of €157 million.

"This will allow the revamped TB programme to focus on tackling disease levels through the implementation of the measures laid out in the new TB Action Plan which I launched last month.

"This allocation will support and enable farm families who are currently dealing with the stress of a TB outbreak to navigate a way out of a TB restriction and protect those herds currently free from TB from the stress of a TB outbreak," he added.

Minister Heydon said he is "confident" that the additional funding "will help drive down the incidences of bovine TB levels for future years".

“This significant additional investment in the programme will support a wide range of impactful measures, including additional targeted testing, additional resources for the wildlife programme and supporting on-farm biosecurity both through direct support to farmers for improving biosecurity infrastructure on their farms and facilitating more engagement between farmers and their private veterinary practitioners through Targeted Advisory Service on Animal Health (TASAH) visits," he said.