Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When those cattle were sold, there was no scheme in place. We were devising a scheme after the fact from September up to May and we were motivated to make sure that farmers got payments, not dealers. There may have been cases where dealers bought cattle and those cattle were sold to a factory under a different herd number. It could not have been the case that they were doing that from September 2018 until May 2019, to make sure that they would get a BEAM payment, because the scheme did not exist when they were making the sale.

We were absolutely driven by the need to ensure the payment went to farmers. The only guarantee I can give is that dealers will not get the payment.