Farmers are due to encounter some financial setbacks due to the poor design of the Beef Exceptional Aid Measure (BEAM) scheme. With the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) raising the red flag on the matter it is understood that farmers will fork out €18 million in payments due to the bad structure of BEAM.
IFA livestock chairman, Brendan Golden says the clear failure of the BEAM scheme and its administration is that 11,000 farmers have, or will have, €18 million clawed back from them.
This comes as figures have showed that 7,500 farmers had failed to reduce their organic nitrogen output by 5% and are liable to have €13 million retrieved from them. The statistics have more than doubled since a year ago, with the amount retrieved from farmers at €5 million.
Golden has called on Minister Charlie McConalogue to immediately resolve the issues that have led to this. He adds that it’s inconceivable that the minister would allow his officials to issue letters to suckler and beef farmers in the coming days demanding the repayment of this money with the threat of interest charges.
Golden claims that the Minister and his officials have had over six months to put in place structures to minimise the impact on farmers.
LSL News.