Irish farmers, who are to get a £2 million cut in animal disease levies, yesterday continued to complain about the details of a new brucellosis eradication scheme announced by the Department of Agriculture at the weekend.
The ICSA, representing drystock farmers, said the mandatory 30-day pre-movement test being imposed is too restrictive. While welcoming the principle of the scheme, which will involve blood testing every female animal in the State this year, Mr Albert Thompson, chairman of the ICSA, said discussions will continue with the Department.
The Irish Farmers' Association sent a delegation to the Department yesterday to discuss the compensation which will be paid to farmers when animals fail the brucellosis test.
The IFA also supports the need to eradicate the disease, but is unhappy with some elements of the scheme, which is necessary to prevent Ireland losing its brucellosis-free disease status.
That status, which allows Ireland to export breeding stock live within the EU, is within seven new cases of being lost. The EU rules allow for 300 cases of the disease in Ireland and currently there are 293 confirmed cases.
There has been an upsurge in the disease - which causes abortion in cows and can be dangerous to humans - since the abolition of the mandatory premovement test two years ago. A total of 760 cases of the disease have been notified to the Department and 247 herds have been depopulated because of the outbreak.
The vexed question of compensation for farmers whose animals fail the test has not been made easier by the fact that the national herd in Fermoy, Co Cork, which was hit by BSE and had to be destroyed, is currently being replaced.
The farm organisations are pointing to the prices being paid by Teagasc for replacement animals for the Fermoy herd, prices they say exceed the compensation on offer by at least three times.