Last year’s budget saw the National Beef Welfare Scheme (NBWS) get an €8m top-up in funding to bring it to a total of €28m.
This resulted in an increase in the available payment from €50 per eligible calf to €75 per eligible calf and also increased the eligible number of animals from 40 to 45 calves.
Some 24,476 farmers applied to the scheme in 2025 and the extra money delivered on the then-Government’s pledge to bring the support payment to suckler cows above the €200/head mark.
This year, there are soundings that the additional funds allocated in 2025 could be in the firing line.
Sources within the Department of Agriculture point to the ever-increasing cost of the TB eradication programme as putting pressure on all other areas.
TB funding is “causing challenges”, the source said, adding that Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon was “trying to maintain what he has for other schemes”.
“To get the full funding for TB, pressure is on other schemes.”
Irish Farmers' Association livestock chair Declan Hanrahan said Minister Heydon must build supports for suckler farmers in next week’s budget to the €300/cow commitment he and his party gave to farmers in their election manifesto.
Dairy-beef schemes
A new National Dairy Beef Weighing Scheme was launched in March 2024 with funding of €4m. It offers participants €20 per eligible calf up to a maximum of 50 calves in return for weight recording.
The scheme was temporarily axed and replaced in the CAP strategic plan by the CSP Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme, but was reinstated in 2025 following mounting calls for its reintroduction.
Any cut to the payment will not sit well with suckler farmers, who will concede that while 2025 was a bumper year for weanling prices, they will argue that it is by no means the norm.
Any move to drop the dairy-beef weighing scheme would also be negatively received.
Threat to suckler and sheep schemes in budget