Farmers owe €69m for breaking milk quotas

Dairy farmers will have to pay a fine of about €69 million for producing more milk than allowed under the now-defunct milk quota regime, new Department of Agriculture figures show.

The EU milk quota regime ended on March 31st and the department has estimated that farmers were 4.34 per cent over quota for the 12 months up to that date.

This will be the biggest fine, or super levy, ever paid by Irish farmers in the 31 years of the milk quota regime.