Since the end of the quota year ICOS have been involved in a project to estimate the projected bill Irish and fellow European Dairy farmers will have to pay. It has been revised upwards to €868 million.

The following is a table outlining the most current projections for the 13 countries facing a bill, with Ireland 4^th on €69 million.

These bills are particularly unwelcome at a time of market difficulty in the dairy sector across Europe.

1. Germany: €300 million
2. Poland: €180 million
3. Netherlands: €150 million
4. Ireland: €69 million
5. Austria: €40 million
6. Belgium: €30 million
7. Italy: €30 million
8. Spain: €25 million
9. Denmark: €24 million
10. Latvia: €10 million
11. Luxembourg: € 5 million
12. Estonia: €3 million
13. Cyprus: €2 million

These figures are well up on the €409 million stumped up by dairy producers from across 8 countries including Ireland last year.  This was also at a time when overall European quota being underutilised by the tune of 4.6%.

The current scheme to spread the final fine over 3 years by Commissioner Hogan is most welcome.  But the reality is that these monies are still been taken away from the dairy industry in full in a time of market difficulty.

ICOS strongly feels that these monies should not disappear unto the general EU budget be retained within a dairy industry under great pressure.

We hope to work with the Commission in the coming weeks to bring forward workable proposals to address this.