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

The infrastructure will be in place, including the weighing scales. We will have a nationwide network of scales to be provided by the successful tenderer. That process will commence on 8 March. The ambition, about which I am confident, is that the hiring out of those weighing scales or the use of approved weighing scales by the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, ICBF, if they are owned or available elsewhere, will enable the scheme to deliver the maximum amount of funding to the farmers who apply. We expect that the fee for hiring the scales will be in region of €50 or less. Farmers can pick up the scales, bring them home, run their cattle through the crush and weigh them as they step on the scales, record the data and send them in to the Department. Payment will then issue before the end of the calendar year. We expect to be making payments in December 2019.

I note the Deputy's point about it not being enough but this must be taken in the round, in the context of the improved funding for the ANC scheme over two years. The Deputy will appreciate that funding for that scheme had been reduced but I will not go into the history of that now. I also note the Deputy's continuing support for the concept of €200 per cow but I did not see that in his party's alternative budget.

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