The EU regulations governing the suckler cow premium scheme specify that only "cows belonging to meat breeds" are eligible for the scheme. However, in order to allow producers to convert their herds to acceptable breeds, a transitional arrangement was put in place which allowed payment on other breeds during 1993 and 1994 provided the cows had been "inseminated by bulls of a meat breed and the producer in question received the suckler cow premium in respect of 1990 or 1991". 1995 was the first year when the rule governing breed eligibility had to be applied without derogations.
My officials carried out field inspections in all cases where applicants changed the breed declaration of any of their cows between 1994 and 1995. In other words, cows that were described in 1994 as non-beef but described one year later as a different breed were examined by my officials to establish eligibility. In the vast majority of cases the animals were found to belong to eligible beef breeds. In a small number of cases involving less than 1 per cent of all those applying for suckler cow premium in 1995, invalid change of breed declarations were found. Under the terms and conditions of the scheme the penalty in these cases was the non-payment of premium under the 1995 suckler cow scheme and ruling out of the scheme for 1996. Anyone penalised in this way was given an opportunity to appeal the decision and, if appealed, was visited a second time by a different inspecting officer to examine the animals in question.
I had my officials discuss the level of penalty in these cases with officials of the European Commission but the change of declaration was considered by them to be serious enough to warrant such penalty.
