Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There were 31,705 farmers in the suckler cow welfare scheme. We have factored in that a significant number of those farmers will be interested in the new €10 million scheme because essentially they have to do very little. All they have to do is keep sending their breeding data to the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation and give basic information such as calving problems in cows and the link to breeding and so on.

In hindsight, the most valuable part of the suckler cow welfare scheme was the breeding data we got from the herd. We want to keep the data flowing but essentially we were paying farmers a little less money for doing nothing new. I do not have exact numbers but I suspect the full €10 million allocation will be used up. Farmers tend not to leave money behind under such schemes.