The introduction of new sheep tagging changes continues to cause confusion with farmers questioning how the level of compensation received will be calculated. There is also confusion surrounding central points of recording.

IFA national sheep chair Sean Dennehy said: “Minister Creed promised sheep farmers that he would insist that all factories and marts would have to provide farmers with a full and accurate print-out of their EID tags numbers for consignments of sheep delivered and this, in turn, would make the dispatch documents much simpler for farmers.”

Dennehy said this is now not the case.

“Factories will have the option to operate as central points of recording. If the minister is imposing compulsory EID on farmers, he must insist that factories and marts operate EID and supply an accurate printout to farmers,” he said.