Mr. John Brooks:

I am delighted to speak on the sheep issue and to represent the ICMSA. First, I wish to point out that there are 33,000 sheep farmers in Ireland and many of them farm land that is suitable for no other enterprise. On a positive note, we welcome the reintroduction of the sheep fencing grants and the fact that the conversion of existing buildings into slatted sheds is now allowable under TAMS. However, we question why refurbishment or retrofitting of existing farm buildings, under farm safety and animal welfare issues, were not included under TAMS.

In the context of what we have said here on the issue of the live export of sheep, live exporters have told us regularly that there are markets on the Continent for sheep, store lambs, feeding ewes, etc. The current system means that if somebody on the Continent or in the UK wishes to buy sheep in Ireland, the animals must be retained on the farm for at least 21 days and up to 30 days, depending on the reading of the rules by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. We believe that such a stipulation is crazy and that the same system for the export of suckler calves should apply to sheep.

One of the members asked from where would the sum of €25 million that we mentioned to fund the sheep scheme come. We believe that €25 million is a small percentage of the overall rural development fund and that there will be underspends in respect of some of the existing schemes. We also believe that improving Exchequer returns may mean additional funding can be provided for the scheme. It is vital that we have some sort of sheep scheme.

Sheep farming has been neglected. We fared very poorly under the reference years because of the system that was in place at the time. Now we are faring very poorly under the current rural development programme, as we have been left out. In comparison a sum of €52 million has been allocated to the suckler scheme. We are calling for a scheme with an allocation of at least €25 million for sheep farmers.