A support package for the sheep industry worth €250 million over the next seven years was announced yesterday by Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan. Seán Mac Connell, Agriculture Correspondent, reports.
The proposals include a supplementary measure under the Rural Environment Protection Scheme of €50 per hectare, totalling €170 million in the period up to 2013. A sum of €42 million will be put into a national reserve for farmers who get less than €6,000 in their single annual payment.
More funds are also being given to Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority and Bord Bia to improve the quality and marketing of lamb.
The package will also provide money for new sheep-handling facilities on farms and aid in removing scrapie-infected sheep and for breeding animals not susceptible to the disease.
Part of the package was the previously announced €50 million capital investment scheme to meat processing plants which is expected to trigger overall investment of €50 million.
Ms Coughlan said the package had yet to be approved by the European Commission as part of the new Reps4 scheme but she expected farmers would be able to apply for it by June 1st.
Fine Gael agriculture spokes- man Denis Naughten said the package on the eve of an election "was too little, too late".
He said it was easy to make promises on the way out of office, but under Ms Coughlan the price for spring lamb was at rock bottom and sheep farmers' livelihoods were under threat.
Immediately before the announcement about 200 farmers protested outside Marks & Spencer on Grafton Street over the importation of lamb from New Zealand.
Irish Farmers' Association president Pádraig Walshe accused it of decimating Irish lamb producers by stocking New Zealand lamb when Irish products are freely available at what he called a competitive price.
"Irish spring lamb producers are facing losses of €12 per lamb, while at the same time Marks & Spencer are transporting imports from New Zealand, 12,000 miles away on the other side of the globe," he said.
Marks & Spencer said that Irish spring lamb would be on sale in all its 13 stores in the Republic next week, five weeks earlier than 2006.