One of the first meetings set up to help sheep farmers fill out the new sheep register was disrupted in Tullamore yesterday by the Irish Farmers Association. The register will provide full information on animals in individual farms.
The organisation's national sheep committee chairman, Mr Laurence Fallon, led a group of 25 supporters out of the meeting, which had been arranged by the Department of Agriculture and Teagasc to help farmers keep proper records.
Mr Fallon described the new register, which was sent out to the 40,000 flock owners at the beginning of the year, as a "bureaucratic monstrosity" which would only undermine traceability in the sheep sector.
"The reality is the sheep register is extremely difficult, if not next to impossible, for farmers to complete. It shows little or no practical knowledge of sheep farming but is being imposed on the country's flock owners without any consultation," he said.
Mr Fallon called on the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, to undertake a full review of the sheep identification and registration with a view to making it simple and practical to operate at farm level.
He accused the Minister of allowing a system to be devised which was so complicated that nobody could understand it.
Mr Fallon said sheep farmers fully appreciated the important role of traceability and accepted that sheep tagging was a requirement for consumers and for animal health controls.
They wanted a system which would work, but he said the complex register system imposed on them would not work.
Sheep farmers, he said, were also opposed to the Department's requirement of removing ear tags from sheep if there was a change of ownership.
The IFA had consistently opposed the tagging of sheep until the foot-and-mouth crisis last year. A tagging system identifying every animal born in the country was put in place last July.
The sheep register will allow Department inspectors to view all sheep movements in and out of the farm.