Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 29 Mar 2001

Vol. 533 No. 5

Written Answers. - Milk Quota.

Jan O'Sullivan

Question:

32 Ms O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development the status of plans to allocate the remaining 11.5 million gallons of milk quota under Agenda 2000; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9282/01]

Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (Mr. Walsh)

One of the results of the negotiation of the Agenda 2000 package was an increase of 2.86% in our national milk quota amounting to 32 million gallons. Already 20.5 million gallons has been allocated, 15 million gallons being allocated to 21,600 producers with quotas of less than 55,000 gallons and a further five million gallons to 3,100 younger dairy farmers with quotas of less than 35,000 gallons. I set aside 500,000 gallons for distribution by the milk quota appeals tribunal to special exceptional cases arising out of the operation of the general distribution.

The balance of 11.5 million gallons will be available from 1 April this year. Because of the major disruption to normal farming practices which has followed from the foot and mouth crisis, I have decided that special arrangements need to be put in place to deal with quota problems which will arise for individual producers.

For that reason, I have announced a number of measures designed to alleviate those difficulties. As part of those measures, I have decided that the 11.5 million gallons should not be allocated definitively from 1 April but should be allocated on a temporary basis in the quota year 2001-02 in order to deal with those cases where serious quota difficulties will arise. Such difficulties will be encountered by many producers who will not be able to dispose of cows or heifers because of the ban on sales and will, therefore, have additional milk production well in excess of their normal output and could be faced with serious superlevy penalties. The allocation on a temporary basis of some or all of the 11.5 million gallons, in conjunction with other measures I have announced, will go some of the way to relieve this potentially serious problem. When matters are restored to normal later in the year I will decide on the permanent allocation of the additional quota.