Political pressure is mounting on Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney with regard to the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP).

It is estimated that over 3,500 farmers attended IFA meetings on the BDGP over the past few weeks.

Speaking at a meeting in Tullamore on Monday night, IFA Livestock chairman Henry Burns demanded that the minister makes a statement and allows some flexibility for concerned farmers before applications are submitted. All meetings were attended by elected TDs, who were united in their support of farmers and called for their concerns to be addressed.

At last week’s meeting, the IFA chair said that the elections are approaching and hinted that the lack of engagement by the minister could hit the Government parties in the next election.

The 450-strong crowd that attended Monday night’s meeting in Tullamore, expressed concern that another meeting had taken place with no Department of Agriculture officials present.

Henry Burns said that the bar is too high and flexibility is needed. He said that force majeure is a very targeted lenience, given only in extreme cases and that it does not address farmers’ issues with the six year rule.

Burns called on the minister to respond to the thousands of farmers who have attended the meetings. After giving a presentation on the details of the scheme to the crowd, Andrew Cromie, ICBF, urged all suckler farmers present to submit their application forms for the scheme.

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.