A protest was staged by farmers yesterday outside Department of Agriculture offices in Mayo to highlight the non-payment of suckler cow premiums due since last October.
Up to 20 farmers, representative of a body collectively known as the Irish Cattle and Sheep-farmers' Association (ICSA), protested outside Davitt House in Castlebar until they were granted a meeting with senior Department officials in the afternoon.
Mr Eddie Punch, spokesman for the group, said 6,000 farmers had waited more than three months for their first payment due under the scheme, which should have been forwarded on October 16th last.
Following an hour-long meeting with the group, Mr Andy McGarrigle, Principal Officer in Charge of Direct Payments, said the protest was over what the group termed increased bureaucracy by the Department but it was all a storm in a tea-cup.
"Every year at this time we would have a small percentage of farmers who would not have been paid for suckler cows for reasons probably to do with something complicated under schemes like the Area Aid Scheme. The position this year is no better and no worse than any other year," he said.
"There are certain levels of increased controls following the BSE crisis and traceability of bovine animals have to be cross-checked. Under EU regulations, payments cannot be made if an animal is not properly on the database.
"Of nine million cattle on the database we have 1.1 million tag numbers and when we started processing these in August/September last year, we had problems with about 30,000 of these i.e. 2.7 per cent. That has now been whittled down to 1 per cent, so the database is 98 per cent correct," he said.
"Farmers must notify the database of the birth, movement and death of animals, within the required time limits. It is not surprising we have this level of problems because we are talking here about millions of animals."
He added that those farmers who had not received payment were fully aware of whatever problems existed with their records and asked that they respond immediately to the Department's queries. The outer limit for payment under the scheme for all farmers was June 2002.
"We will be paying the 20 per cent balance due on this scheme from next Friday. Those who did not receive the 80 per cent advance payment on the scheme will receive their full 100 per cent once their records are correct. There is no question of us witholding payment. we are trying to push them through for payment as fast as possible and this whole thing has been blown way out of proportion," he said.