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

I am a bit perplexed by that. I am actually surprised by it. This relates to one of the things we had before the current Minister assumed office. His predecessor had a major campaign to get this scheme brought in. In fairness, the Department provided the money. Now, however, it is not being taken up. I would be delighted to remind the former Minister about it – I will probably meet him tomorrow night somewhere. I will tell him that people did not take it up. Is it because of two health-related actions? Are they part of the problem? I cannot see it. Have Department officials given any thought to what has led to this significant shortfall in the anticipated numbers that would participate?

I am a great advocate of the beef genomics scheme. I am glad to see Deputy Ó Cuív raising the matter. Deputy McConalogue, Deputy Cahill and myself have had some significant clashes on it. I was a strong advocate and I think it is important. In fairness, it is useful but there are large numbers of technical requirements. I have a brother involved and he is a relaxed person. There is such a level of technicality involved that one could overstep and lose. That is the problem. I am beginning to wonder about some of the management requirements. Will the Minister arrange for some officials to examine which of the management requirements are the biggest blocks to people participating? The numbers involved in part 2 of the beef data and genomics programme are disappointing. I thought the programme would get another 5,000 or 6,000 participants. I believe the potential of this scheme is over 30,000 or thereabouts.