Blue Book requirement should be dropped

THE legal requirement on farmers to maintain a herd register (Blue Book) for all their cattle should be immediately dropped.

Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association beef and cattle committee chairman Martin McMahon said, given what he termed the comprehensive and accurate computerised system now in place.

Mr McMahon said every animal in Ireland is tracked by the Computerised Movement Monitoring System (CMMS) in the Department of Agriculture and Food. Under this system the department knows exactly in what herd an animal is at any time.