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

May I respond because there is something I need to clarify here before we go down this road any further? There are two matters being confused here. There is the 2014 payment for the beef suckler herd, part of which requires a farmer to take a DNA sample from 15% of the herd and to provide information on his or her herd. That is a separate scheme to the one on which we are building for the rural development programme, RDP. We have not yet decided in terms of the beef genomics and data scheme within the RDP whether a farmer will be required to take samples from 15% or all of his or her herd. That is a decision that we will finalise during the consultation process on improving that scheme and it is something on which I would encourage the committee to make suggestions and recommendations. We are increasing the payment for farmers and the requirements of farmers can also be increased in terms of the beef genomics scheme. We want to get as much data as we can and as many DNA samples as we can from the herd. It is important not to confuse the beef genomics and data scheme which will be in the new RDP starting in 2015 with our current commitment to the genomics scheme for 2014. One builds on the other but they are two different requirements and it is important to clarify that.