Mr. Philip Carroll:

I thank the Chairman and members for inviting Meat Industry Ireland, MII, to address this committee and to have an exchange of views on electronic identification in the sheep sector. The announcement by the Minister last month that electronic tagging will be extended to all sheep is a necessary step to further underpin our sheep traceability system and will put the sector on a sound footing for future development. Our breeding ewe flock has been electronically identified now for many years, as has a proportion of lambs from certain producers. From 1 October this year, the full picture will be completed.

The extension of EID to all sheep ensures that Ireland keeps pace with our competitors and with developments in other major sheep producing member states in the EU. Northern Ireland has had full electronic identification in place for over a decade and France, England, Scotland and Wales have all moved to full EID several years ahead of us. It is important that we make this move now. Furthermore, our national cattle identification and traceability system is recognised internationally as world class. It is, therefore, imperative that our sheep identification and traceability system should also be of an international standard. Bringing it to that standard will profoundly increase Ireland’s prospects of opening up access to new international markets.

The move to full EID of all animals in the sheep sector will undoubtedly reinforce our national traceability system, which is based on one tag for life and individual animal identification. Certain aspects of the current regime require improvement. To the extent that the current systems falls short of best international practice, it is imperative that any deficiencies identified, which could undermine full and complete traceability, must be corrected immediately. MII strongly believes that the electronic identification of sheep is the best remedy to these deficiencies.

Using electronic identification tags and technology has many advantages. One is that it offers another form of identification for each animal. Sometimes conventional tags get lost, dirty, covered by wool or hair, become snagged on a fence and so on whereas EID tags are small and are designed for high retention rates. Another benefit is that an animal can more easily be identified by scanning the tag with a reader rather than needing to have the animal completely still to read a conventional tag number. Scanning EID tags, rather than writing down conventional tag numbers, is a tremendous benefit to farmers in saving time and minimising errors. Electronic identification means individual animals can be monitored through their entire life cycle via an electronic ear tag. Performance of animals and flocks can be better monitored, measured and responded to and the input of resources can be better managed to ensure profits are maximised.

Electronic sheep identification, therefore, has both identification and traceability benefits as well as management benefits. Apart from overall flock performance monitoring and improved information for breeding decisions, more routine weighing and sorting tasks can also be made easier.

MII is firmly of the view that this underpinning of our sheep identification and traceability system, through EID, is critically important to the positioning of Irish lamb in the market place and to competing for key customer accounts. In the first instance, it is important in respect of maintaining our existing customer base for Irish lamb. Systems of traceability and processing operations are continuously audited by major customers and by independent third parties and as we export over 80% of our overall sheepmeat production, we must ensure that our traceability regime is of international calibre and can stand up against our competitors who will be competing in the same international markets that Ireland is targeting.

In this regard, MII and its members are working actively with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to progress access to new international markets such as the US, Japan and China. The move to full EID, which reinforces our traceability system, is an important enabler to progressing these applications and, ultimately, delivering new international market access opportunities for Irish lamb exports.

I wish to emphasise that full electronic identification of sheep will bring significant benefits to the sheep sector. These include: facilitating farmers in their flock management, performance recording and improving flock register accuracy on the farm; full EID will greatly enhance the accuracy and flow of information to Sheep Ireland for its important work in sheep breeding and genomics; it will assist in bringing greater efficiency to handling sheep at farm, livestock mart and processing plant level; and, critically, in bringing the benefits of modern technology to the sector, it will contribute to far greater robustness to the identification and traceability of sheep and improve our prospects of securing new international markets for Irish lamb.

As I said at the outset, MII believes that the move to full electronic identification of all sheep later this year is an important step forward for the sector and will see the completion of a very comprehensive animal identification system for the sheep sector in Ireland. I thank the committee.