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

I confirm that the scheme will be open to all farmers and not just current participants in BDGP. It is consistent with every utterance I have made in the context of the suckler sector; it is not a coupled payment. A coupled payment would run contrary to everything the industry has been striving to achieve over recent years, which is improving the quality of the herd. That is the direction of this initiative and it is compatible with the objectives of the BDGP, where currently minimal data are being collected on the weanling efficiency, that is the relative weight of the weanling to the suckler cow. It is not a coupled payment.

I fundamentally believe that a coupled payment would be the wrong direction in which to travel. That is the reason there will not be a coupled element to this scheme. As I said, it is open to all farmers. I appreciate the Deputy's observations about not everybody having access to a weighing scales. That is the detail we need to work through with stakeholders, including the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, ICBF, with which I have had some preliminary conversations. I am satisfied we can get to a situation where the majority of the payment will be to the farmers. There will be some costs insofar as they will have to access weighing scales but I believe we can do that in a very cost-efficient manner.

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