Paisley Jnr. calls on DARD to assess sheep losses after bad weather hits farmers hard

Mr Paisley said that many sheep farmers, particularly in hill areas were particularly badly affected by the high winds and snow and have suffered heavily through losses to their flock.

Calling upon DARD to act quickly in assessing the losses Mr Paisley said: ‘The heavy snow and high winds which affected many areas of Northern Ireland last month have had a particularly devastating effect on many sheep farmers. Whilst farmers in many of the areas suffered because of damage to electricity supplies and to buildings, sheep farmers were particularly badly affected with both ewes and lambs lost as a result of the extreme conditions.

"DARD did not act swiftly after the last spell of bad weather when many potato and vegetable farmers suffered heavy losses, and only moved to carry out investigations after heavy pressure from political representatives including myself and other party colleagues. I believe that the Department must now act on this occasion to properly assess the level of losses suffered by farmers across many parts of Northern Ireland last month.

"People will have seen the disruption to electricity and transport across areas such as East Londonderry and North Antrim but whilst these are relatively short-term effects, the problems for farmers are much longer lasting and are potentially crippling to their business. Sheep farmers are faced with the increased costs of having to introduce Electronic Identification, something which I believe is unnecessary and bureaucratic, without any benefit to the industry. Sheep farmers, faced with that extra level of cost, can ill-afford the kind of losses experienced by many hill farmers during the bad weather.

"There has been a clear reluctance on the part of DARD towards compensating farmers who have suffered loss and this has been demonstrated through their reluctance to even assess damage after flooding or other extreme weather conditions. The Department must now learn from their mistakes of the past now be pro-active in assessing these losses suffered by sheep farmers."