ICMSA welcome opening of 2026 Dairy Beef Weighing Scheme but “frustrated and irritated” that problems identified in 2025 Scheme not remedied

The Chairperson of ICMSA’s Livestock Committee, Michael O Connell, has welcomed the opening of the 2026 National Dairy Beef Weighing Scheme, but said that farmers were frustrated and irritated by the failure of the Minister and the Department to remedy obvious problems present and identified in last year’s National Dairy Beef Weighing Scheme.

Mr. O’Connell stated that the budget allocation and ‘Ts & Cs’ are a complete carbon copy of the 2025 scheme which was oversubscribed by farmers.

“The Minister should know better than setting out that a farmer can claim €20 per head on a maximum of 50 calves when the 2025 scheme was completely oversubscribed and the same is likely to happen in 2026.    Last year participants received a linear cut in the number of eligible payable calves which was reduced to 31 from 50 outlined in the Terms and Conditions.   We don’t think it’s acceptable to lead farmers into a false sense of expectation here and ‘over selling’ the scheme when we all know that it’s almost certain that the payments will fall short again based on an already insufficient budget.  As is well known, we advocated for the original Dairy Beef scheme and are frankly fed up highlighting the importance and potential that’s clearly there, but dependent on adequate funding.  The Minister’s statement that this scheme is ‘enabling them to benefit from the growing importance of dairy beef production’ is a complete insult: €20 per calf wouldn’t buy a half bag of milk replacer.  Calf-to-Beef systems have become extremely costly; extremely specialised and the return on investment is a good two-year process.   The Minister has attempted to mask the embarrassing budget by stating he is ‘committing €10.25 million to support farmers breeding and rearing dairy calves for beef production’.  But the budget is for two completely separate schemes: not every farmer is eligible for both schemes and some farmers are eligible for neither scheme.   It is time for the Minister to realise that paltry ‘donations’ to farmers – pennies into a hat – are not what is required. Set up and fund a decent scheme that recognises the cost and time allocated to dairy beef production”, said Mr. O’Connell.

Mr. O’Connell has also stated that the Minister needs to review his decision not to fund Bluetongue vaccination through this scheme.  

“Farmers know their stock and don’t expect farmers to be doing the work for ICBF by weighing the cattle and providing the data for them.  We are heading into a period where the health status of our national herd could be jeopardized and our Minister has failed to produce anything to help dairy farmers – who have had to bear the full cost of vaccination – to reduce that risk”, he continued.

The ICMSA Chairperson said that the most baffling part of this scheme was having farmers apply for the same scheme two years in a row. 

“Why not just roll it on from 2025 considering everything is, frustratingly, the exact same?   Farmers who applied for the scheme in 2025 should be automatically enrolled for this year. It’s yet another case of closing the ‘administrative gate’ when the ‘application horse’ has bolted; the application process for this year’s BISS payments opened on 13 February and two months later, the Minister opens applications for the NDBWS. Why are farmers having to go through the whole application rigmarole again instead of ‘syncing’ the opening dates so that all applications for payments can be made on the same date.  Why are farmers expected to contact an agri advisor on two or three separate occasions in the spring to apply for this, that or the other scheme, when the workload is already massive”, said Mr. O’Connell.

The ICMSA Livestock Chairperson concluded by stating that Dairy Beef was so obviously a real option with real potential that it behoved the Government to begin looking at it seriously and not wasting farmers valuable time with ‘cut and paste’ repeats of schemes that were substandard the first day they were rolled out.

Ends      16 April 2025

Michael O’Connell, 086-8551015

Chairperson, ICMSA Livestock Committee

Or

Cathal MacCarthy, 087-6168758

ICMSA Press Office