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Ulster Unionist Agriculture, Environment & Rural Affairs spokesperson Tom Elliott has said that DAERA has a huge amount of work to do to provide confidence in the agricultural sector following their acceptance at the Stormont scrutiny committee this week that the delays and over-budget in the development of the computerised and online Northern Ireland Food Animal Information Service (NIFAIS) was the Department’s fault.

Mr Elliott said: “Following the Comptroller and Auditor General report of last year which highlighted that the new system was more than five years behind schedule and over-budget I expected a significant part of the problem to be with the developers of the system who had been awarded the contract.

“I was surprised when at the AERA Committee on Thursday Department officials accepted that almost all the fault of the delays and added finance were the responsibility of DAERA.

“Following these revelations it is important that measures are put in place to provide confidence to the agriculture sector, but also the wider public that whatever the Department failings were are resolved for future contracts and negotiations.

“While this process has taken a long time to bring everyone into the system, that is now coming to a final phase. There were a number of problems with the system when farmers, marts and abattoirs were initially transferred to it, thankfully most of these have been resolved and hopefully there can be a period of stability within the DAERA online system now.”

Elliott says DAERA must provide confidence to sector after NIFAIS delays