The Northern Ireland Minister of Agriculture, Michelle O'Neill and her counterpart in the Republic, Simon Coveney, have jointly announced the end to brucellosis pre-movement testing across Ireland.

From next Monday, there will be no need for farmers to have tests, following Officially Brucellosis Free status for both parts of Ireland.

Both Ministers said that, following the effective eradication of the disease, it was now appropriate to end internal pre-movement testing for brucellosis in both the north and south.

Minister O'Neill stated: “Once formal publication of the Commission’s decision is made in the Official Journal of the EU, I will be able to announce additional steps I can take to further dismantle the brucellosis testing programme in the north, in line with European legislation. Indeed this work is already underway, and in recent months I increased the testing interval for beef herds to two years."

At the peak of our testing programme, pre-movement testing was estimated to cost the farmers in the north at least £2million per year, so this will generate a substantial saving for our farming industry.”