£80m EU package for beef farmers

IN WHAT will be seen as an election sweetener for farmers, the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Yates, will later this week announce a package of compensation for the beef sector worth close to £80 million.

"Obviously my priority would be farm incomes rather than electoral gains, but if the two coincide, so be it," Mr Yates said about the timing of payments, expected to be in May.

The Irish Farmers' Association pointed out last night that the money is all EU cash from already-anticipated packages. The organisation's president, Mr John Donnelly, said the Minister was still failing to give a commitment to match EU compensation for currency losses by farmers.

The Minister was in Brussels for a meeting of farm ministers which was due last night to ratify Commission proposals for some £50 million in aid to Irish farmers arising from the revaluation of the green pound. The balance of Mr Yates's expected announcement will come from an already approved £30 million in BSE compensation payments agreed during the Irish presidency last year.

The Commission traditionally meets half the loss made by farmers when subsidies paid in ecus lose their value after revaluation. Member-states are entitled - expected, the farmers say - to make up the balance of the losses.

The Irish green pound has been revalued three times in the last six months and is expected to be revalued again on March 28th. The IFA claims the losses to the average dairy farmer on milk subsidies are currently running at £54 a week, for only half of which they will receive compensation.

The Minister said he was not ruling out top-up exchequer payments later in the year. Mr Yates said he had strongly resisted the Commission's proposed price package for next year. Mr Yates said he was hopeful the Union's Standing Veterinary Committee would give a positive response to Ireland's anti-BSE programme when it meets on the issue after Easter.