Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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1547. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the extent to which the national beef herd has increased or decreased in the past five years to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33811/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The CSO's June Livestock Survey includes the information below for the years 2015-2019:

*Note that the figures for 2020 are provisional estimates.

This year the total cattle numbers increased by 105,800 (+1.5%) to 7,314,400.

The number of other cows dropped by 16,500 (-1.6%), while the number of dairy cowswas up by 62,900 (+4.2%).

More detailed data from the CSO's June and December Livestock Surveys each year is available at the following links:

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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1548. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the extent to which the numbers in the national dairy herd have altered in the past ten years to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33812/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Data on the national herd are published twice yearly by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on the basis of two categories; dairy and other cows. The following table details the number of dairy cows in Ireland using final data extracted from the CSO June Livestock Survey. Figures presented have been rounded to the nearest decimal point.

*Dairy cows are those kept principally to produce milk for human consumption.

Provisional figures for the June 2020 Livestock Survey estimate the dairy cow numbers at 1,568 (000 Head) representing a 4.2% increase over 2019.