The Department of Agriculture's fodder task force is to report back to the Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed, with feedback on the fodder crisis from the meeting of the Fodder Action Group in the new year.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio on Friday morning, the Minister said that the Department of Agriculture will do an analysis on that feedback and respond to the issues then.

“I’m pretty satisfied that we do not have a national fodder crisis. In the northwest, there was a particularly wet summer and autumn. Many failed to get a second cut of silage and cattle were housed earlier.

“The Department responded. We brought forward and got permission from the EU to pay entitlements [earlier].

“Some €1.3bn has been paid in direct payments to farmers and we also have the department's own animal health and welfare helpline.

“If they contact the helpline we will assist them and I’m encouraging individual farmers to call the department if they have issues.”

Minister Creed and the department has come under criticism in recent weeks for what farm organisations say is a lack of action in the northwest on the fodder issue.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal earlier this month, Pat Gilhooley from Leitrim IFA said: “We’re in a fodder crisis here in this part of the country and the minister needs to accept that.

“There has been a lot of work done, but what we need is money and if they (the Department) are ruling out fodder vouchers, they need to give us something else.”

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