To protect and develop our vital lamb trade it is essential that Ireland now puts in place a workable, credible and reliable system of sheep identification. Factors influencing this requirement include: the recommendation of the sheepmeat forum, which recognised "the need for a sheep traceability system"; market developments; most notably the introduction in Britain with effect from 1 January 2001 of a tag based identification system; the increasingly important need for identification and traceability for disease control purposes; the universally recognised unsatisfactory nature of our current system; and the general approach at EU level to traceability and identification.
In designing the system to be put in place my Department has placed the emphasis on simplicity and on minimising both bureaucracy and cost. It is proposed that identification would be by means of tagging and will be based on flock numbers, although farmers will have the option of individually tagging for flock management purposes. All sheep would have to be tagged within six months of birth or on movement off farm, whichever is the sooner.