There are numerous farmers across the country who are waiting “weeks and months” for their compensation for reactors following a TB breakdown, according to the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA).

This comes following the launch of the long-awaited TB action plan by Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon on Tuesday.

Deputy president of ICMSA, Eamon Carroll, has said that as a preliminary to the rolling-out of the actions in the TB action plan the Minister must turn his attention to the issue of those farmers waiting for excessive periods for compensation.

ADVERTISEMENT

“God knows there are enough financial and other worries on these farmers' minds due to an outbreak without being left hanging and waiting for their mandated compensation.

"This week has seen the launch of the new TB programme to reduce the number of TB reactors across the country. Many new measures will be falling on farmers’ shoulders and there are bound to be more reactors found in the short term due to increased blood tests, and we think that it would be a very prudent and wise decision to move to clear the existing backlog of payments-due before these further reactors are added to the mix."

Carroll said that the scheme needs buy in and the Minister is going to have to earn farmer confidence in this effort.

"We think a very good start to that process would be to clear the alarming backlog that’s already there in terms of overdue compensation payments.

"That should happen and it should happen before this Plan starts adding to it in what could possibly be substantial numbers," said Carroll.

Farmers' charter

He added how it is "difficult to know" how much credibility the Department attaches to the farmers’ charter.

"It’s worth noting that there are prescribed deadlines contained within that and it would certainly help build confidence in the efforts on TB – that we think is lacking right now – if the Minister and the Department were to deal with these delayed cases immediately."