Commonage committee to begin work as appointments completed
He said the committee, which will hold its first meeting shortly, is chaired by Joe Healy, a livestock farmer from Galway, as well as a former president of Macra and former chairman of Athenry Mart.
Mr Healy will be assisted by two senior department officials with specific experience in this field and two technical experts, one from the Department of Arts, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht and one from Teagasc.
Also appointed to the committee is Andy McGarrigle, former head of the department’s SPS entitlement division, who retired earlier this year.
The new committee has two main terms of reference. One is to examine cases where there is disagreement by shareholders over proposed minimum/ maximum stocking levels for commonages. The other is to assist with instances where difficulties emerge in securing the necessary 50% agreement among active shareholders for participation in the GLAS agri-environmental scheme
Mr Coveney said his priority had been to get this committee up and running. “I am very aware of the concern amongst commonage shareholders about these new proposals and I want to ensure that we iron out any remaining issues in good time, with an eye to next year’s Single Farm Payment and applications for the new GLAS scheme,” he said.
“I believe this new committee will play a key role in resolving specific issues at individual commonage level.”
The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association has urged the Government to ensure that Teagasc has adequate resources to help farmers with the GLAS scheme applications.
Suckler committee chairman Dermot Kelleher said Teagasc announced a €10m investment in its research facility at Moorepark earlier this year.
Yet it was recently reported that it does not expect to be in a position to provide an advisory service to individual farmers in the way in which it was done in the past, he said.
Mr Kelleher said while investment in research is positive, and the ICSA would like to see more of it, particularly in the beef sector, it should not be at the expense of planner services to farmers.
“We understand that resources available to Teagasc have been limited by government policy, which has prevented recruitment and seen good advisers fall by the wayside through failure to renew contracts.
“Early retirement schemes have also resulted in a drop in staff numbers without bringing in major savings.
“Private providers are already struggling to cope with demand for their services, and if the Government is serious about a target of 30,000 GLAS plans, extra resources must be made available to Teagasc,” he said.
