The Pedigree Breeders Council of Ireland has decided to vote "no confidence" in the board of the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF).

The vote followed a meeting of members of the ICBF Stakeholder Forum held on Friday (February 14) over the Euro-Star indices.

The forum was formed in a bid to address the concerns of suckler farmers and pedigree breeders following new Euro-Star evaluations which were introduced in November 2023.

Sean Coughlan, chief executive of ICBF, has confirmed to Agriland that the economic values of the Euro-Star indices will be updated in the summer.

Work is already underway on updating the economic values and is being led by Teagasc’s beef enterprise leader Dr. Paul Crosson.

Coughlan also confirmed that farmer recorded data will be used as part of the evaluations from this summer onwards.

However, these announcements seem to have not satisfied the concerns of the Pedigree Breeders Council of Ireland.

In a statement, the council said: "Unfortunately, after twelve months of participation in the stakeholder forums, we the Irish Pedigree Breeders Council have taken a vote of no confidence and have lost complete faith in the ICBF board and Technical Advisory Group (TAG) committee.

"We are deeply concerned regarding the unbalanced make up of the ICBF board and TAG committee and the chosen direction they are leading us."

The council has also once again requested a "fully independent audit" of the Euro-Star indices.

"Scientists say that the stars hold the secrets to successful breeding, while breeders on the ground eagerly await the cosmic connections," the statement added.