A Department of Agriculture investigation has been mounted into a surge in the registration of bull calf births in the last two weeks of May. Over 47,000 male calf births were registered between May 15th and May 31st, an increase of 15,000 over the same period in 2003.
Only male calves born before June 1st will qualify for the €150 Special Beef Premium for castrated animals and €200 for bull calves at nine months, the last of the EU premiums.
Department officials will be checking for possible fraudulent claims being made for the payments, the last of their kind in the reformed EU Common Agricultural Policy.
It confirmed yesterday that it would be stepping up its inspections to determine when the calves were born. Cattle premiums will be phased out and farmers will receive an annual payment based on the number of animals they claimed for in the three-year period to 2003.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, announced the publication of the second Cattle Movement Monitoring System Statistics report for 2003. It showed the cattle population was 6.6 million, there were 2.14 million calf births and almost 1.5 million movement to marts, over 800,000 farm-to-farm sales and some 23 million slaughterings.
Mr Walsh said the CMMS was from a central computerised database on the birth, movements and disposal of all native or imported cattle.