The genetic evaluation of calving difficulty in Ireland is currently based on farmer reported scores. The predicted transmitting abilities can then be converted using non-linear regression on phenotypic calving difficulty for high reliability bulls to an estimate of the percentage of difficult calvings for Dairy Cows and Dairy Heifers. A non-linear penalty is proposed to account for the risk that a low reliability bull may have a much higher percentage of difficult calvings than initially predicted. In addition to this penalty, a non-linear weighting is proposed for calving difficulty within a dairy beef index to reflect that a 1% increase in calving difficulty at a level that is already considered high has a larger economic impact than a 1% increase at a lower level.