Payments under the Suckler Welfare Scheme are made on an ongoing basis once the provisions of the Scheme are met. This year my Department has issued payments to 31,288 farmers for animals registered under the Scheme during 2009.
To date, payments amounting to €19.6 million have issued in respect of 490,000 of the 885,000 animals registered in the Scheme during 2009. As previously stated, payment is made on an ongoing basis and payments are cleared as soon as all of the required information has been submitted and found to be in accordance with the Terms and Conditions of Scheme. Any case where payment has not already been made is as a result of outstanding information and/or the data submitted confirming non-compliance with the Terms and Conditions of the Scheme. The main types of errors that are preventing payments include the following:
Late registration of calves.
No disbudding dates supplied.
Introducing meal feeding too late before weaning.
Abrupt weaning of calves in herds of 10 or more calves.
Non-submission or incorrect submission of data on some or all of the measures.