The Greens accused the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of introducing a "bad idea" after a recent dispute with the system.

The party called for a suspension of the distribution of electronic sheep identification (EID) tagging rules for all sheep "until all trading floors and factories have installed the systems needed to read them."

Pippa Hackett, spokeswoman for the Green Party on Agriculture and Food, said that although farmers will be required to tag all the sheep and lambs with electronic tags from June 1, 2019, the installation of the necessary reading systems for meat factories and trading floors will remain optional.

“Although we would be for any system that improves traceability and potentially improves market opportunities for sheep farmers, it seems ridiculous that such a system can be deployed without pre-installation on trading floors and factories,” she added.

Hackett further said that she herself, as a sheep farmer, was keenly aware of how tough margins were at no extra cost for EID.

“Like the sheep farmer himself, I know that the margin is tight, imposing this additional and yet useless price on each lamb will not bring any benefit to any sheep farmer or the sector as a whole. Until all parts of the supply chain are fully required to support this decision, its implementation should be delayed or canceled. Common sense must prevail, ”summed up the representative of the Green Party.