Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 16 June 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Beef Data and Genomics Programme: Discussion

2:00 pm

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have the same data. The Department received about 28,000 applications, so it is about 60%. That is a fact. In simple terms, the situation becomes much more acute at ten and under. In case people think these are all in the hills of the west of Ireland, from Donegal to Kerry, they can forget it. These small herds are spread throughout the country. We do not have 40,000 herds in the west of Ireland. Therefore, the fact still remains, as Deputy McNamara said, that this scheme is totally unattractive to small herdowners and is geared towards the guy with the big automatic computerised operation for all the data keeping. That claim is borne out by the figures.

I will make the following prediction. I went on radio and encouraged farmers who had between three and nine cows to apply because we hoped the Department would adopt a common-sense approach. Unfortunately, I must now explain to those farmers that the Department will not budge an inch and that farmers will have to weigh advantages against risks before participating in the scheme. With or without me, when the packs arrive the Department will find there is a massive attrition rate among small herdowners. I do not know if any of my colleagues on the committee, who deal with farmers at marts around the country, agree with me. I believe the Department will find that of the 8,600 farmers, or 20% of applicants, 50% of them could easily vamoose.

The scheme reminds me of the Grand National. Let us say 28 horses line up and that they represent 28,000 applicants. The pack comes out at the first jump and the scene is like Beecher's Brook on a bad day where all the runners tumble down. The participants will go over all the jumps over the six years but at the end of the scheme, we will be lucky to wind up with 20,000 farmers finishing and the Department will claw it all back from the rest.

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