€100 per head is sought in COVID ‘compo’

A MINIMUM payment of €100 per finished animal is being sought by the IFA as ‘a central plank’ of the €50 million Beef Scheme, announced earlier this month by Agriculture Minister, Michael Creed.

The IFA have made a 16-point submission to the Dept. of Agriculture which includes the minimum payment rate request of €100 per finished animal, to be paid retrospectively from the date of the Minister’s announcement on June 12 last.

They also want all finished cattle to be covered in the scheme, including steers, heifers, young bulls and cows – with the exceptions of cows having a conformation score P and fat score 1, and calves.

IFA Livestock Chairman, Brendan Golden, said that the details of the scheme had to be farmer friendly with no conditionality attached to the drawdown of the payments. Among the other points of the scheme sought by the IFA are:

■ There should be no restrictive limit on the number of eligible animals per farm qualifying.

■ The full funding of €50 million must be utilised and paid out to farmers with no portion of the fund to be left unused. Dealers and factory owners to be excluded.

■ Payments should be eligible applicants on or before the end of August so as ease financial/cashflow difficulties.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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