The Beef Plan Movement has set out three ways it believes the Government should use an emergency Brexit aid package to help beef farmers. On Tuesday, An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told farmers at the IFA AGM that Dublin officials had initiated requests for
emergency aid from Brussels in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
The Beef Plan Movement has set out three ways it believes the Government should use an emergency Brexit aid package to help beef farmers.
On Tuesday, An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told farmers at the IFA AGM that Dublin officials had initiated requests for emergency aid from Brussels in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
On Wednesday night, Beef Plan’s Monaghan representative Micheál Rafferty told 300 farmers from the border county that the group is taking the threat of Brexit seriously and is looking to insulate beef farmers as much as possible from the UK’s exit from the EU.
Serious
“We’re looking at Brexit and taking it extremely seriously,” Rafferty said.
“We’re looking at all options and we are thinking outside the box on it.
"We’re not just about rehashing old ideas, we’re coming up with our own plans,” said the Co Monaghan suckler farmer.
“The Taoiseach says he has a Brexit emergency fund and there are three things that we feel this fund could be used for.
“The first is the Bord Bia levy. We don’t think farmers should have to pay for this. The total value of the levy should be funded out of the Brexit emergency fund."
Micheál Rafferty told 300 farmers from the border county of Monaghan that the group is taking the threat of Brexit seriously.
Tag levy
"Then we have the standard tag levy. Again, rather than being deducted from the farmer and paid to the ICBF, that money should be taken from the Brexit fund and paid straight to the ICBF.
"These two things would save farmers millions," said Rafferty.
“Finally, there are those farmers who are unregistered for VAT but can use an existing system to reclaim the VAT on capital works around the farm," he continued.
"We believe that this facility could easily be extended, using the emergency fund, to allow farmers reclaim VAT for expenses outside capital works such as silage plastic, TB tests, vet bills, etc.
"We need to get in front of the Minister for Finance [Pascal Donohoe] to raise this as a real solution,” he said.
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