Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 30 Apr 1991

Vol. 407 No. 6

Adjournment Debate. - Suckler Cow Premium Scheme.

Mr. Boylan:

I want to thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for allowing me to raise this very urgent and important matter on the Adjournment so that it can be clarified by the Minister. This matter relates to farmers who ceased milk production in the late seventies and early eighties under the non-marketing of milk scheme and the dairy herds conversion scheme. Those farmers ceased milk production with the intention of building up suckler herds, which they considered to be an easier way of life and they received suckler grants for doing this.

When the Mulder case was considered by the European Court it was decided that farmers who had ceased milk production under the non-marketing of milk scheme and the dairy herds conversion scheme were entitled to a quota after the 1983 quota year and they were awarded such quotas. In October 1989 the Department of Agriculture and Food issued a document to co-operatives informing them that a large number of Irish farmers were entitled to a quota under the Mulder quota scheme. They were advised, and I quote:

(a) the quota may not be surrendered under a cessation or restructuring scheme nor may it be offered for lease under a scheme for the temporary leasing of quotas,

(b) (i) in the event of the sale or lease of the supplier's holding the quota allocation shall revert to the Community Reserve.

The next three clauses are not relevant. I want to refer to the last paragraph which is relevant to the case I am making here. It states:

As indicated above the quotas are being allocated provisionally at this stage. In order to have his/her quota allocated definitively each supplier must have recommended milk deliveries from his/her holding by 29 March 1990 at the latest and must, in a continuous twelve month period between 30 March 1988 and 29 March 1991, have delivered at least 80% of the quota provisionally allocated. If these requirements are not met the quota shall be returned to the Community Reserve.

This is where the problem arises. The farmers to whom I have referred were notified by the Department of Agriculture and Food, that under an EC Directive, they would have to return the suckler cow grants they received in 1989 if they did not supply milk. The amount of milk they had to supply was not specified — it could range from one gallon to 1,000 gallons. In many cases farmers supplied ten, 15 or 20 gallons on the advice of their co-ops, who were acting on the instructions of the Department of Agriculture and Food.

In order to meet the requirements set out in the EC directive and to keep their Mulder quota alive, they had to supply a certain amount of milk. The amount of milk involved is minimal. They supplied this milk in the national and local interests — they wanted to hold the quota in this country. It is unfair that these farmers are now being penalised for having met that requirement. There was no way a farmer could know in October 1989 what quota he would have been entitled to in January. He had built up a suckler her and only supplied the milk so that this important quota would be retained in the country and he is now being penalised for doing this. I ask the Minister to change this regulation which is unfair and unjust.

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Walsh):

Under the EC Regulations governing the suckler cow premium schemes between 1980 and 1989 an applicant had to undertake not to engage in commercial milk production for 12 months after the date of lodgement of his or her application. Any 1989 suckler cow scheme applicant, therefore, who had applied after the opening date of 15 June 1989 for accepting applications would have given an undertaking not to engage in commercial milk production for 12 months from his or her date of application.

Under Council Regulation 764/89 governing the allocation of Mulder milk quotas applicants for such quotas were enabled to receive provisional quotas within three months from 29 March 1989 if they fulfilled the criteria governing allocation of those quotas. Under Commission Regulation 1033/89, however, any person who received such a provisional quota was obliged to show by 29 March 1991 that he or she had resumed commercial milk production for at least 12 months before that date. This meant that he or she had to resume such production by 29 March 1990 at the very latest.

The net effect of these two regulations was that a successful applicant for Mulder quota had to resume commercial milk production some time between 30 March 1989 and 29 March 1990 and had to have at least 12 months of such continuous production starting from some date between those two dates. Unfortunately, however, regardless of when such commercial milk production began between those two dates, this meant that an applicant under the 1989 suckler scheme would have broken the undertaking given by him or her not to engage in commercial milk production from his or her date of application. In such circumstances under the rules of the 1989 suckler cow scheme, the Department of Agriculture and Food would have had no choice but to recover any suckler cow premium paid to the applicant concerned.

It does not seem to me that this is an anomaly at all. Basically it is a matter of the 1989 suckler cow scheme applicant making a choice between the benefits of that scheme and the benefits of acquiring a Mulder milk quota. Every other milk producer in the country was excluded from benefit of the 1989 suckler cow scheme where he or she was found to not to have complied with the undertaking not to produce milk commercially. There seems no reason at all, therefore, for the exclusion of recipients of Mulder milk quotas from such a penalty. It may be argued, of course, that such recipients may have large start-up costs for their new dairy enterprises and that some flexibility should be shown under the suckler cow scheme regulations. Regretfully, however, we have no discretion under the EC Regulations governing that scheme to show such flexibility and as a result the Mulder quota recipients must be treated in exactly the same way as all other milk producers.