Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Okay.

I have another question and we have received phone calls on this. There are a lot of farmers with 50, 60 or 80 cows and one bull. They bought the bull in the last year. They have complied with BDGP and SCEP. They have run it to the letter of the law. They are now left in a situation where cows were brought down and the bull may have come down to two stars. The heifer is off then. This is an enclosed herd because many of these farmers are trying to keep TB out. Every one of them I spoke to this morning is in trouble in coming back up. Would the witnesses support us, as a committee, going to the Department to ask it to allow those heifers to be brought into play to comply with the scheme until the end of 2027? The witnesses talk about 2025 but it is a five-year scheme. Would they support this committee? Would they do that too? If we keep going down the road we are going down with people who have followed it to the letter of the law from BDGP, SCEP and so on, many of those farmers will not comply at the end. I know the witnesses will give the figure of 75 but some cows will not going into calf, some of them will be older, some of them will get hurt or whatever. All these problems happen; that is the reality in farming. It will end up that those farmers will never comply with another scheme on the figures they have, when they are an enclosed herd and when they are tight like that.

Second, what do the witnesses say to the breeders? I know a young lad who is in Australia at the moment who put all his money into breeding Limousin bulls. This is a young lad from Castlerea. He is devastated today because the whole job has turned upside down on him. His bulls are gone from 4 and 5 stars down to 2 stars and 3 stars. What is the solution to help the likes of those people? Simental also got a good rattling. What is the solution for helping those people out? I read that no farmer would be financially impacted. Those were the words it used.