Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I explained this issue at the meeting in Maam Cross because the officials did not seem to understand it. The average lambing rate on a hill is approximately 70% and generally half of the lambs born are male and half of them are female. This gives us 35 lambs per 100. Farmers lose 10% of their lambs per annum through natural mortality on hills when we take good years versus bad years, which gives us 25 lambs per 100. As well as this, farmers must replace their cast ewes every year. These ewes are getting too old to survive on the hills and are sold onto the lowlands. This means another ten are gone. Therefore, out of every 100 ewes a farmer has, his net increase in ewe lambs, if he is lucky, is approximately 15 ewe lambs.

From where, therefore, are all the mythical ewes that farmers are going to need to comply with the Minister's great plan going to come? How and from whom are farmers to "obtain" them?

These are questions to which the Minister has not given consideration.

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