Volume 9: Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
Part 3: Northern Ireland
14. Departmental responsibilities
Other bodies relevant to the BSE story
Regional Communicable Diseases Liaison Group
Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU)

Regional Communicable Diseases Liaison Group

14.37 The Northern Ireland Regional Communicable Diseases Liaison Group (RCDLG) was set up by the DHSS and was chaired by a senior medical officer from that Department, quite often the CMO. Its members were the Communicable Disease Consultants of the four Health and Social Services Boards, the Chief Environmental Officer of the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland, the CVO or a DCVO from DANI, a Nursing Officer of the DHSS, microbiologists, and consultants in infectious disease. ¹

14.38 The functions of the Group were the epidemiological surveillance of communicable disease and food poisoning, and collection and collation of relevant information; advice to the DHSS and other NI Departments on communicable disease control policy; and coordination of services involved in the control of communicable disease. ²

14.39 A briefing was provided at each of the meetings of the RCDLG on a range of zoonotic diseases. Mr Ron Martin, DCVO (Implementation) from 1985 to 1990, told the Inquiry:

It was not just BSE, it was TB, brucellosis and so on. And if I recall rightly things like salmonella and salmonella in eggs and many issues of that type, so that there was that formal link whereby we communicated. But the Communicable Diseases Group was also a partnership where we would have liaised generally. ³

14.40 The Group was set up to provide a broad strategic view on communicable disease. In her statement to the Inquiry Dr Henrietta Campbell, CMO for Northern Ireland from January 1995, said:

. . . it could not be considered that a small country such as Northern Ireland could support a research base or academic centre for spongiform encephalopathies. However, BSE was included as an item on the agenda of each meeting and members were updated on the BSE epidemic. One member of the group, Professor David Simpson, a [consultant] microbiologist at Queen's University, Belfast had a particular interest in zoonoses. The Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer of course also attended each meeting and kept us updated on the animal health issues. The group recognised that they did not have any particular expertise in the spongiform encephalopathies and there was an acknowledgement that as a group we were not well equipped to make any independent conclusions on the risks to human health. ⁴

Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU)

14.41 Mr McKibben of AHD told the Inquiry that he consulted regularly with industry interests in Northern Ireland, including the Ulster Farmers' Union. ⁵ These organisations were invariably consulted on policy issues and proposals relating to BSE. ⁶