Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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138. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will reconsider the cuts to the beef and sheep welfare schemes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65495/25]

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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I will deal with the three nationally funded beef and sheep schemes separately, but at the outset I want to state that the combined allocation for 2025 across all three schemes was €54 million and €54 million will be paid across all three schemes in the coming weeks.

Beef Welfare Scheme

The Beef Welfare Scheme 2025 opened for application on 13th August, 2025 and closed on 24th September, 2025 with participants committing to carrying out the mandatory action (meal feeding) and any optional actions (vaccination and faecal egg count / forage testing) they applied for.

Total applications of 24,476, an increase of 700 farmers on 2024 scheme, were received.

Due to demand and the popularity of the scheme and to stay within the budget allocation of €28 million, a linear adjustment is being applied to the voluntary measures of vaccination, forage analysis and faecal egg count. No adjustment will be applied to the mandatory measure of meal feeding. Some 452,000 calves will be supported by the scheme.

The payment rate for a farmer who has applied for all three actions will be €67 per calf on up to 45 calves. In 2024, the payment was €50 per calf with the maximum number of calves payable being 40 calves. Therefore, the maximum payment in 2025 will be €3,015, a significant increase from the maximum payment of €2,000 in 2024.

Payments for Beef Welfare Scheme participants who have cleared all administrative checks will commence in early December 2025. All of the €28 million will be spent.

National Sheep Welfare Scheme

€22 million was allocated for the continuation and expansion of the National Sheep Welfare Scheme (NSWS) measures in Budget 2025 compared to €15m in 2024.

Over 17,200 farmers submitted an application.

In 2024, applicants who completed their 2 chosen actions were paid at a rate of €8 per breeding ewe. In 2025 the option of completing an additional action was provided within the scheme and any applicants who have selected to carry out all three actions will be paid €11.50 per breeding ewe, an increase of 44% on payment rates in 2024.

Payments for the National Sheep Welfare Scheme commenced on 10 November 2025 with €16.44 million paid to 13,175 participants. A further payrun will occur in early December 2025. All of the €22 million will be spent.

National Dairy Beef Weighing Scheme

This scheme provides support of €20 per calf on up to 200,000 calves within the scheme allocation of €4 million.

Calves had to be weighed and weighted provided to ICBF by 1 November 2025. In total over 305,000 calves were weighed across over 8,300 herds. To stay within the €4 million allocation, the maximum number of calves payable per application will reduce from 50 calves to 31 calves. Payments under this scheme will commence in the coming days.

In addition to ensuring the full allocation of €54 million is spent across these three schemes in 2025, I have secured a further €54 million for continuation of these schemes in 2026 and discussions with the farming organisations have already taken place on ensuring the schemes in 2026 are equally successful and take up equally as strong as we have seen in 2025.