Without any disrespect to the Minister of State, I am disappointed that the Minister did not see fit to stay for the debate even though he is in the House. This is the second time today he has disappointed me. This afternoon he did not see fit to attend the meeting of the Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It appears the Minister is losing interest in these matters. He has certainly taken his eye off the ball on this issue.
It has just recently emerged that a very funda-
mental and seriously damaging change has been made to the rules of the suckler cow premium scheme for 2002. Farmers have always accepted the necessity to have replacement heifers in their herd in order to qualify for the premium. The current requirement is that 15% of the herd are replacement heifers. In a herd of 20 suckler cows, for example, one would have to have three replacement heifers for the herd to qualify for the scheme. These replacement heifers must remain in the herd until the end of the retention period. We all understand the reasons for that.
Until now, it was assumed the replacement heifers could be in-calf heifers and nobody ever asked the time at which the heifers calved. That was the basis upon which the scheme operated and everybody understood it. Now, however, it has emerged that there is a new rule for 2002, under which a replacement heifer will no longer be counted as one of the replacements in the herd if it calves before the end of the retention period. The effect of the rule is much greater than it appears. The requirement to have a 15% replacement rate means that the loss of one replacement removes six cows in the herd from the benefit of the scheme. So now, one heifer calving in the herd before the end of the retention period will disqualify six cows, or in fact to be pedantic about it, 6.6 cows from the benefit of the scheme. That is a major, monstrous and unwarranted change in the conditions of the scheme. The calving pattern of replacement heifers should be decided by the dictates of good herd management and good husbandry and should not be decided by the need for bureaucratic tidiness whether it is in Brussels or in Kildare Street or wherever else it might be. There is no reason in the wide world why there should be any specification as to when a replacement heifer in a suckler herd can or cannot calve. As long as the animal is on her first pregnancy then she should qualify as a replacement heifer irrespective of when she calves.
The reason there is a condition in the scheme that there be replacement heifers in the herd is to make sure the application is for a bona fide ongoing continuing suckler cow operation and is not a scheme that is there for fly-by-nights who buy in cows in order to get the benefit of the premium and sell them on when they have collected and pocketed the premium. The requirement for the replacements – a very logical one – is enough in itself to make sure the scheme has the necessary effect. This new rule is a completely unjustifiable and unnecessary twist. I call on the Minister to ensure that the status quo ante is restored and that hard-pressed suckler herd owners will not now be penalised in this major way, losing potentially one-sixth of their income under the scheme.