THE GOVERNMENT is seeking to minimise the cost of electronically tagging every sheep in the State which will be mandatory under EU law from December 31st.
Minister for Agriculture, Brendan Smith said he was seeking a derogation which would mean only animals retained for breeding and live export would have to carry the two tags required by EU law.
This should mean mandatory electronic identification (EID) would apply to no more than 18 per cent of the national flock, Mr Smith said.
Some 70 per cent of flocks in the State are of a scale of 100 sheep or fewer. This should mean that under the “slaughter derogation”, fewer than 20 per cent of animals in the average flock would be affected.
Mr Smith said in a statement that he had consistently sought the introduction of EID on a voluntary basis and had argued for that up to the last EU farm minister’s meeting on November 20th.
“Regretfully, there is not sufficient support among other member states or from the European Commission for any further changes in relation to the date for the mandatory introduction of EID,” the statement continued.
“The prevailing view at EU level is that member states should proceed with implementation of mandatory electronic tagging which is definitively set at December 31st, 2009.”
Farm organisations in the Republic have been waging a losing battle over the new EU proposals which they claim will cost the industry at least €50 million annually.
Farmers claim the overall €50 million loss would be made up of a €40 million loss in output and €10 million for the electronic tagging system itself.
They also claim the manual sheep-tagging system being operated here is adequate, that the cost of purchasing electronic scanning devices is prohibitive and the new system poses an animal welfare threat to sheep.
Mr Smith said his department had circulated a technical document on the proposed changes to the National Sheep Identification System to farm organisations and other stakeholders for discussion.
He urged the organisations to engage with his officials and put forward whatever revisions being made to the new identification system best suited Irish conditions.
A recent Oireachtas committee on agriculture heard from the then Irish Farmers Association president Pádraig Walshe, that tagging a sheep cost between €2 and €2.50. As a cost ratio. this was the same as charging a beef farmer €30 for tagging his animal, Mr Walshe said.
The Oireachtas committee, which unanimously backed a motion to ask the Government and EU not to introduce the system here, was also told that some smaller marts would go out of business because of the cost of installing scanners to read sheep tags.
In his statement, Mr Smith said farmers would not be required to buy scanners as the current system would continue to have a number readable to the human eye so there would be minimal change to current practice.
Northern Ireland is moving ahead with the full electronic identification system, which will also apply to goats.