Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is vital to ensure that the genetic background of our herd continues to improve to allow us to penetrate and achieve a greater share of the market. The market is much more profitable now. Two decades ago, fewer than two out of every five of our animals were capable of doing so because of our genetic and breeding background. In my area, the midlands, suckler cows are significant and we are significant beef producers. This scheme is very important and I will have no truck with anybody advocating that people do not apply by the closing date. I certainly advocate very strongly that they apply and then make up their own minds. I would not encourage people to withdraw from the scheme. I hope there will be amendments and changes that will make it more meaningful and allow people to continue to participate in it.

People always preface their remarks with the phrase “it is my understanding”. That is the problem with the scheme. The phrase means there is less certainty and a lack of clarity. That was the bane of the scheme in its infancy. The way the information was presented was less than helpful, to put it charitably. The emphasis on claw-back was a major error. Putting red lines up straightaway strikes fear and terror into people, particularly given that the strength and depth of the force majeurecircumstances were not set out comprehensively and illustrated, as they should have been. I agree with Deputy Ó Cuív about the experience of looking back and clawing back from people when they were given payments under the circumstances that prevailed at the time. Now people are suffering because of high resolution digitisation of cameras. That is less likely to happen in this area. That is the rationale for people’s fears. The Department must understand why people are fearful and address those fears in a comprehensive and focused way while dealing with the issues.

How will farmers maintain the number of animals to fulfil and achieve the four and five star status requests specified for the BDGP herds? What guarantee can one give to ensure that the genotyping costs will be restricted to 50% of the total payments to farmers? Why is the number of animals for genotyping being significantly increased when compared with the numbers in the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, ICBF, trials in 2014? One would anticipate an increase but the volume, level or nature of the increase is significant. Very often it would be better to have the training up front, rather than as the final element of the programme. I know there were time constraints but this is the problem with a scheme that is time constrained.

We are coming to the troughs late in the day and are now trying to fit it in. It is being brought in under a different heading and trying to achieve things in an area using a particular heading. We all understand that, as we should. Over the six years it will bring in well over €300 million. I hope that when those teething problems are ironed out, there will be some flexibility to give people confidence in the scheme. If the first thing we are presented with in school is a ruler instead of being welcomed and we are slapped, we will have a fear for the rest of our time there. That was a failure of communication on the corporate and political levels.

It would be foolhardy to dismiss the scheme. I see a great deal of benefit in it, particularly in the trying circumstances beef farmers are in, and it is important that they get every aid that can be given and that it is used to increase the profitability of the herd. This could be modified and appropriate flexibility built in to correlate to the individual circumstances of the farmers. Some farmers are ageing too. That has to be taken into account. Some farmers I deal with are ageing and the amount of paperwork is a negative for them. That may well be part of the issue. If the Department can get the training right and it is not laden with bureaucracy, it will be a worthwhile scheme and I would like to see it go ahead when some flexibility and appropriate amendments are made.