Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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803. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if the deadline will be extended for the submission of dung samples under the Beef Environmental Efficiency Programme – Suckler, BEEPS, scheme due to the unavailability of sampling kits; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34698/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The objective of the Beef Environmental Efficiency Programme – Suckler is to further increase economic and environmental efficiency in the suckler herd through better quality data on herd performance, supporting decision making on farm and support of best practice in welfare management.

Applications were made via my Department's online application system at www.agfood.ie. The scheme opened for applications on 12th March 2020 and the closing date for receipt of applications was 15th May 2020.

In addition to the mandatory weighing requirement, participants had the choice of two additional animal welfare measures. The first of these involves the meal feeding of calves as part of the weaning process or carrying out a vaccination programme in conjunction with the participants veterinary practitioner. The second optional measure was to submit samples to a participating laboratory for faecal testing.

My Department engaged with seven laboratories for this purpose and a list of those participating laboratories was posted on my Department's website at the start of the scheme. The deadline for the submission of these samples was the 1st November and, over the last few weeks, the participating laboratories have seen a significant rise in demand for the required sampling kits. While one of the laboratories had difficulty in meeting this demand in the final week, the remaining 6 continued to operate as normal and sampling kits remained available. It is therefore not intended to extend the deadline in relation to this scheme option.

As with all schemes, it is open to applicants to submit appeals in relation to any particular issues that arose in meeting scheme requirements. All such appeals will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.