Watch: Heydon defends livestock payment cuts amid high uptake
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon has defended the recent cuts to livestock scheme payment rates.
The minister said that more "user-friendly" scheme conditions, and the announcement of those terms earlier in the year, resulted in more people applying for the schemes.
This resulted in the oversubscription to the schemes and the subsequent reduction in final payment rates compared to what was originally outlined.
Last week, payment rates under the Dairy Beef Weighing Scheme got underway, with €4.09 million issuing to some 8,153 participating farmers. The payments were made on a total of 204,739 calves.
However, the number of eligible calves that could receive payments under the scheme was reduced from 50 to 31.
Earlier in November, it was confirmed that payment rates for the National Beef Welfare Scheme (NBWS) and the National Sheep Welfare Scheme (NSWS) would be cut, with rates falling from €75/calf to €67/calf in the NBWS, and from €13/ewe to €11.50/ewe in the NSWS.
These cuts have drawn the ire of the farming organisations, who say farmers should get paid in line with scheme payments rates as outlined when the scheme opened.
Speaking to Agriland at the annual general meeting (AGM) of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA) last week, Minister Heydon defended the terms and conditions of the schemes.
He said: "I'm just through my first budget negotiations and it's a fairly lengthy, detailed one, but I can tell you the way it works is you don't sit down with the Minister for Public Expenditure and talk about per-head rate payments.
"You talk about livestock schemes and you talk about a global figure. That's what I had to negotiate for next year, that's what I inherited for this year, and I don't control the amount of people who apply for those scheme," the minister added.
"What I do control are the terms and conditions of the schemes and when it's opened up.
"When I got the job first in January, it was really clear to me that farmers were very frustrated at having to wait 'till about June to find out the details," Minister Heydon said.
He added: "Many farmers, livestock farmers, had made on-farm decisions about the selling of calves or weanlings or different animals, moving stock.
"That meant then, when the terms of conditions came out, they couldn’t meet them, whether that was faecal egg counts, meal feeding, whatever," the minister said.
"So I was determined to have that conditionality agreed earlier this year and published earlier this year.
"I clearly outlined what that livestock scheme conditionality would look like to give farmers that certainty. I also worked with officials to design those scheme, with extra conditionality, to be as user-friendly as possible," he added.
According to Minister Heydon, the "user-friendly" scheme designs and the earlier announcement of the conditions resulted in more farmers applying.
"It is €131.8 million that I have for livestock schemes this year. It’s an increase of almost 18 million. So there is more money there for livestock schemes, just more people have applied," he said.
"I had a decision to make. I could have stuck with a commitment of €13 per ewe [in the NSWS]…and have some [farmers] get nothing. I didn’t think that was right."
"I think it's right that every farmer who applied, who took on measures, got paid. They got paid more than last year. The €8 [per ewe] last year has increased to €11.50," the minister added.
"It's not the €13 they wished to have, but I have to manage my budget within the constraints in which I have them, and it is an increase on last year, and I’ve secured the same €131.8 million for next year as well and I look forward to working with the farm organisations on how best we design the schemes," Minister Heydon added.
