Ms Maria Dunne:

The difficulty for us in respect of the utilisation of funding under the BAR was that the sheep sector is notably less dependent on the UK market than some other agrifood commodities, such as beef. According to the Central Statistics Office, CSO, the UK accounted for 43% of total beef exports by value and volume in 2022, whereas sheep meat exports account for only 13% in value and 16% in volume. It was much more difficult for us to make a link between anything happening in the sheep sector and Brexit. There were various requests for measures. For example, one of the requests was for a payment for sheering sheep, which would not fit within the criteria for the BAR.