Approximately 450 farmers packed into the Tullamore Court Hotel on Monday night for an IFA meeting on the BDGP (Beef Data and Genomics Programme).

The crowd and IFA officials expressed widespread annoyance that another meeting had taken place without a Department of Agriculture official present. This was echoed by elected representatives present.

IFA Livestock Chair Henry Burns and Livestock Director Kevin Kinsella both said that the bar is too high and flexibility is needed. They called on the Minister to make a statement before the end of this week before applications are submitted.

They said that force majeure is a very targeted lenience given only in extreme cases and that it does not address issues with the six year rule. Kinsella called on the minister to respond to the thousands of farmers who have attended meetings in the last week.

After giving a presentation on the finer details of the scheme, Andrew Cromie of the ICBF urged all suckler farmers present to submit their application forms for the scheme.

‘’After you submit your application forms, there will be a cooling off period of about three weeks. You will then receive a one page report in the post detailing the €uroStar data of your herd and after that you can decide whether to continue in the scheme," he said.

On the issue of clawbacks, Cromie told the group that according to the terms and conditions, clawbacks will only occur where the replacement strategy or training requirements are not met. This equates to about 30% of the money.

Watch: Discussion on the BDGP