Vol. 515 No. 1
99 Mr. U. Burke asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development if, further to Parliamentary Question No. 154 of 9 February 2000, it is now a requirement for a parliamentary question to be economically justifiable in order to receive a reply in agricultural matters; and if he will reply to the above mentioned question. [5425/00]
The difficulty in this case is that statistics are not maintained in a manner which would enable an accurate reply in a reasonable time frame to be given to the question raised. The Deputy will recall that on 17 November 1999 he raised a question relating to the number of herds in each county on which a livestock scission report had been carried out to that date in 1999 and the number of herds amalgamated in each county and of these the number which were in existence prior to June 1992. Since the information sought was not readily available my Department wrote to the Deputy on 8 December 1999 giving the information. It is reasonable to take into account the cost and time associated with assembling information and such an approach is not without precedent.
