Electronic Identification (EID) tags don’t make life any easier for sheep farmers, a meeting in Enniscorthy heard last week.

Three options for administration of compulsory EID from next year were outlined at the meeting by Martin Farrell of the Department of Agriculture.

These include full EID, which would require all animals over the age of nine months, or on leaving the farm of origin, to carry both an EID tag and a conventional tag. The second option would allow lambs going direct from the farm of birth to slaughter to carry a single EID tag without the need for a conventional tag.

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The third option would see factory lambs only requiring a single conventional tag. In all scenarios presented, all sheep brought to marts would require an EID and a conventional tag.