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

To clarify, there are over 35,000 farm families involved in sheep production. Interestingly, they are predominantly but not exclusively concentrated on the western seaboard, with Donegal, Galway and Mayo having the highest concentration of sheep farmers. It is a welcome investment in the western seaboard counties in particular.

There will be a different menu of options reflecting the different management practices of hill sheep farmers and lowland sheep farmers, which is important. When it gets up and running is contingent on when approval comes from the EU. I would like to have the applications issued in early 2017. I acknowledge the highest costs incurred by sheep farmers are in the late spring and early summer, so in an ideal world that is when we would like payments to issue. However, that is subject to receiving applications, cross-compliance checks and so on. I cannot be definitive about that and it may well be later than that when payments are made.

This reflects a significant investment in the industry, which has stood in line long enough. There are other related matters the industry will have to grapple with in regard to electronic tagging which, although not contingent on this scheme, is becoming an issue in respect of market access for our exports. We opened a new export opportunity in Iran recently. I am committed to publishing a consultation paper in that area in order to get the maximum possible consensus on how we might address traceability issues in the sheepmeat sector.

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