Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses but the ICBF has lost the dressing room. It is quite clear it lost the dressing room. Its board has lost the dressing room. Who is the board made up of? They are disconnected from the reality on the ground. There is an absolutely outcry about what it has done. Farmers have lost confidence and the political system has obviously lost total confidence in the ICBF and its indices. The most affected farmers are those who followed the ICBF’s advice and had herds of 4-star and 5-star cattle. Why should they now change from these cows and risk the ICBF changing its mind again? The replacement index is becoming a farce. The only farmers who will follow these indices are those who are forced to as part of the SCEP scheme.

There was no consultation with the breed societies prior to the changes being agreed. Societies were informed of the changes to the economic model but the impact of the changes was never shared with the societies. It is evident from the changes to breeding valuation that the ICBF still has not conveyed all the changes it made to the calculations. Its representatives admitted the lack of consultation themselves. When a rare breed such as a Dexter is brought towards the top of an economic index, it is fundamentally broken. They are, by definition, non-profit making, and following the index will lead to financial ruin. It is also evident that these types of cattle are being promoted in other beef breeds.

The ICBF stated that no farmer will be financially affected by the change to the scheme. Who will compensate both pedigree breeders and replacement providers that invested in what the ICBF said were 4-star and 5-star animals that can no longer provide progeny suitable for the scheme? The bulls being elevated to the top of the replacement index will have a major negative impact on both the carcase’s weight and the weaning weight that farmers can produce. This in turn affects farmers’ viability and the quality aesthetics of the Irish beef producers.

I have a number of questions. They will be quickfire because I have quite a lot of them and I do not think we will be able to go through them all. Who requested Teagasc to develop a new algorithm for calculating the indexes? I will ask three questions at a time. What was the objective of the exercise Teagasc undertook? What is the new algorithm optimised for?