The Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) appeared before the Oireachtas committee on agriculture on Wednesday. Chief executive Seán Coughlan, chair Michael Doran and Paul Crosson from Teagasc were questioned for over three hours in what could be described as a tense meeting.

Numerous deputies pressed ICBF for changes to the rules in relation to the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP).

In response, Coughlan said: “We are not a lobby organisation but in my own personal opinion no farmer who made a breeding decision and acted in good faith in making that decision, should be negatively impacted financially by that decision.

“It’s the Department of Agriculture that is responsible for SCEP but we have already engaged with them on this issue and will engage further,” he said.

While many acknowledge that rewinding the clock to the old index isn’t possible at this stage, this could mean a relaxing of some of the targets in SCEP if the right case is made.

A number of the members of the Oireachtas committee continued to press ICBF to row back on the current update.

Coughlan said: “It would not make technical sense to do this. The new ones [that] are out there will be the ones that farmers will want to use.

“You would have farmers out there buying and selling animals and making breeding decisions based on two indexes. It’s completely impractical to suggest this as an option,” Coughlan said.

Michael Doran said that he would update the board “on the conversations we have had today but I do not see the board changing any of its decisions to date”.

The board of ICBF was also criticised in its decision-making process. Responding to this criticism, Doran said that “every member of the board has the chance to express their opinion and a collective decision is made with the genetic gain of the national herd in mind”.

“We convened a board meeting on deferring the latest evaluation run for six months and the board of ICBF was of the opinion that a deferring of the latest evaluation run would cause more confusion than is already out there.”

The overriding criticism from all committee members was on the ICBF communication of the changes.

Senator Joe Flaherty said: “ICBF has overstepped its mark and is working outside its remit” with particular reference to the inclusion of carbon in the new index.

Senator Paul Daly asked how long the current evaluation was worked on. He outlined that farmers entered into the SCEP in good faith in spring 2023 and eight months later the goalposts have changed.

He also questioned the integrity of the SCEP where farmers are now getting paid on two-star cows to get a SCEP payment.

Chair of the committee, Jackie Cahill, told the group that all members of the committee have had unprecedented numbers of calls and emails in recent days in relation to the changes and he urged ICBF to take note of the frustrations that are out there.