The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) is seeking a meeting with the Minister for Agriculture to discuss the Government's withdrawal of a subsidy for the collection of dead animals.
The fallen animal collection scheme was introduced in 2001 to subsidise the cost of removal from the farm and destruction of dead livestock amid concerns over the spread of BSE and foot-and-mouth disease.
The scheme ensured deceased carcasses were subjected to increased environmental and animal health controls. The Department's subsidy, which ended last night, was announced as a cost-saving measure during this month's supplementary budget.
The Department of Agriculture has put arrangements in place to provide financial support for the collection of certain animals for sampling, as required under the ongoing national BSE surveillance programme.
IFA deputy president Derek Deane told RTÉ's Morning Irelandprogramme this morning that farmers are now left in a position where they have to find alternatives methods of disposal.
Mr Deane said farmers are being asked to increase the amount they pay towards the destruction of animal carcasses from €6 million to €22 million, an increase of 270 per cent.
In 2001 the then minister for agriculture, food and rural development Joe Walsh, said a charge of between £10 and £25 for the collection of cattle, depending on their age, was widely accepted as reasonable.
It is anticipated that the abolition of the scheme the cost of collection and rendering will now increase the cost of animal collection and disposal to €190 per animal.
Mr Deane said the increased cost would make it impossible for farmers to pay the charges and called on the Government to look at the situation in place before the BSE crisis in the 1990s.
"We want to end up with an efficient system that works and that isn't going to put our beef industry or our dairy industry under pressure with extra costs."
