Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 5 October 2021
768. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of cattle removed from the national herd arising from the beef exceptional aid measure by replacement index rating, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48110/21]
View answerThe objective of the Beef Exceptional Aid Measure (BEAM) was to provide temporary exceptional adjustment aid to farmers in the beef sector in Ireland subject to the conditions set out in EU Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1132. This aid was granted to provide temporary market adjustment support in response to a specific market disturbance as outlined in Ireland's notification to the EU Commission and the 5% reduction was part of the conditionality sought by the EU.
Total payments under BEAM were c. €77 million with just over 33,000 participants joining the scheme. In doing so, they gave a commitment to reduce the production of bovine livestock manure nitrogen on the holding by 5% for the period 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021 as compared with the reference period of 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2019 as recorded on the Department's AIM system.
Farmers could meet the 5% Nitrates reduction requirement through a variety of means including selling cattle as normal, selling cattle earlier that they might typically do, buying in cattle later and/or buying in younger cattle than they might normally do. There was no explicit requirement in the scheme that cattle had to be slaughtered to meet the 5% bovine nitrates reduction requirement.
