James Kehoe, by email

Dear Sir: After four years as Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney needs to take some positive action for the sheep sector as his record on sheep is poor.

He has abolished the Sheep Grassland Scheme payment – originally worth up to €9/ewe. The minister has argued that it was subsumed into the new Basic Payment Scheme, which is correct, but as a specific payment to help maintain ewe numbers it is gone.

REPS was a real income lifeline for sheep farmers and that is also gone. As a replacement, GLAS is a lot less attractive for lowland and hill sheep farmers.

The new TAMS excluded sheep fencing, another negative move. There are also talks that sheep farmers will not be eligible to apply for the new Knowledge Transfer Scheme if they are already in a beef group.

And the latest move, where the Department of Agriculture is suggesting that sheep farmers will have to move to EID tagging at a minimum for lambs in mixed batches, will impose another unnecessary cost on flock owners.

Minister Coveney and this Government have a number of months left in office. He has an opportunity in the forthcoming budget to introduce some positive measures which would help maintain ewe numbers, boost farm incomes and grow output and exports.

The IFA has put forward a strong proposal for a targeted direct payment equivalent to €20/ewe and is seeking initial funding of €25m for this in 2016. We need an immediate decision to allow sheep fencing to be a part of TAMS.

The minister should clarify that sheep farmers will be eligible to qualify for Knowledge Transfer even if they are already involved with a beef group. Also GLAS should have priority access for both lowland and hill sheep farmers. There is a lot Minister Coveney can do for the sheep sector. He needs to make a positive start in the budget on 13 October.