The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, has been called on to apologise to farmers on the Cooley peninsula, "whose names have been tarnished by the mischievous and erroneous statement by the Department of Agriculture that 100 farmers have been involved in gross fraud".
The former IFA national sheep chairman, Mr John Elmore, who is spokesman for the "Cooley Compensation Campaign", made the call yesterday. A sheep farmer on the peninsula, he said the claimed figure of 6,600 missing sheep did not stand up to scrutiny.
"I can confirm that three farmers whose flocks were counted and checked by Department officials before being taken for culling have been asked to account for 172 missing sheep.
"These are sheep the Department cannot account for. One of the farmers had 69 sheep slaughtered and he recently received a cheque for compensation for the 69 sheep, yet the documentation accompanying the cheque stated it was for 22 sheep."
He was now worried that he would be asked to account for the 47 "missing" sheep and be classified as one of the 100 farmers the Department claimed were unable to produce all the ewes they were claiming for.
Mr Elmore said he is angry "the Department has acted so carelessly in its calculations".