On Tuesday, 12 March, the weather forecast predicted heavy rainfall. Unfortunately, in the Comeragh Mountains in County Waterford, there was a severe blizzard which lasted 24 hours. There were accumulations of snow as high as 20 feet in places. A considerable number of sheep were lost as a result. The areas worst affected were the upper regions of the Nire Valley, Ballymacarbry, the Glenpatrick area of Rathgormuck, the Glendalgan and Comeragh areas of Kilrossanty and also the Kilbrien area in Ballinamult. Few sheep farmers were affected, but those who were affected suffered huge losses. In some cases over 50 per cent of their flocks have apparently been lost. The full detail of the losses will not be known until the snows have melted and an exact count is done.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry has been quite busy and today six or seven officers from the Department, together with local sheep farmers, carried out a count as best they could but there is still ten feet of snow in places and until it has disappeared the exact losses will not be known. A considerable number of sheep have been washed away in the streams and rivers which flow through the areas in question, so it will be quite a while before there is a full tally of the losses.
The weather forecast was wrong. It is not fair to blame the people who compile the weather forecast because it is only an educated guess, but the sheep farmers in question were taken totally unawares. They would have moved their sheep down the mountain had they known there was to be such a huge fall of snow. They did not have any prior warning of the blizzard and the consequences have been dire for about 25 or 30 mountain sheep farmers.
As a result of representations I made to the Minister's office I know Department officials have been quite active and are sympathetic. One official stated last week that he considered the situation to be force majeure, which I understand means that when it comes to payment of premia, the contract cannot be fulfilled because the sheep no longer exist. At this time of year sheep flocks are usually punched by officials from the Department to verify payment of premia but only half the flocks had been punched before the blizzard so the losses are difficult to ascertain and they will be dependent on the earlier departmental records.
It is very important to understand that the sheep farmers in question do not want immediate compensation. Many laymen do not understand that mountain sheep cannot be bought in from other areas and assimilated into a flock. They must be brought up where they were born. If they are brought in from a strange area they simply stray away and do not come back. Compensation to allow farmers to buy in sheep would not solve the problem. The sheep farmers want the premium to continue to be paid for the next four or five years in respect of the sheep which have been lost so that they can build their flocks back up to their former level.
This has been a tragedy for a couple of dozen sheep farmers who have seen their livelihoods wiped away in the course of a few days. Unfortunately, after the blizzard, which contributed to snowdrifts of over 20 feet in places, there was substantial rainfall and the snow was consolidated, sheep suffocate in consolidated snow. If snow is powdery, sheep can survive for days and weeks because they can breath through the snow but when snow turns into half snow and half ice, when it becomes consolidated, they suffocate within a matter of hours. The losses have been severe and I would like the Department to take a sympathetic view and to abide by the wishes of the farmers. They are not looking for anything special, they are simply looking for the opportunity to rebuild the stocks they have lost.
