Penalty points proposal ‘unacceptable’

Ireland: Macra na Feirme has described the Department of Agriculture’s so-called ‘penalty points’ system for non-compliance with animal registration and identification regulations as unacceptable.

President Thomas Honner said the penalties in the proposal were too harsh and three years was too long to ‘carry points’.

However, he said he was not opposed to a graded system in principle, provided there was recognition in it that farmers would not incur sanctions for unintentional non-compliance.