The purchase of animals for destruction scheme, part of the EU's BSE control plan, will be put in place in the State on January 7th next, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Mr Walsh, said yesterday.
The scheme is the preferred option for the EU, which set the price being paid for animals in the alternative intervention scheme at such a low rate that no factory in the EU applied for a tender.
The statement from the Minister said the finalisation of the price which the scheme would pay for animals would be completed next week. He had already announced that the compensation payments would be, on average, 85.5p a lb for steers, 85.81p a lb for heifers and 55.38p a lb for cows.
The farm organisations rejected these average prices and pressed the Minister to increase the price to be paid in compensation to 90 a lb, a figure they say will barely compensate farmers for losses.
They pointed out that a further 5 per cent was payable under the scheme at the member states' discretion.
The EU will only pay 70 per cent of the cost of the animal. The remaining 30 per cent, plus all processing cost from point of intake to final disposal, will be paid by the Exchequer.
This could run to well more than £200 million in the next year.