Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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501. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans to raise the suckler cow payment in budget 2018; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42356/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP) is the current main support for the suckler sector and makes provision for some €300 million of funding over the next six years to Irish beef farmers. 

I will continue to support this programme through the lifetime of the current RDP.  Any increase in the payment under the BDGP would require approval from the EU Commission. This would be very difficult in the context of an innovative scheme which has undergone an approval process relatively recently. Even in the event that such approval was obtained, it would be necessary to require farmers to undertake additional actions to justify any additional payment, making the scheme more complex and compliance more onerous.

 I have already in 2017, reopened the BDGP to beef suckler farmers who were not already part of the scheme. The scheme (BDGP II)  also provides for six years of payments to farmers for actions which deliver accelerated genetic improvement in the national herd and improvement of its environmental sustainability. There are currently 25,669 participants in BDGP I and BDGP II.

Payment rates and actions for participants in BDGP II are the same as those in the original scheme, with the exception that the training and carbon navigator actions must be completed by 31 October 2017. Explicit provision has been made for new entrants. I should also point out there a range of other supports available to suckler farmers under the RDP, notably GLAS, ANCs and Knowledge Transfer groups.