The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association president Jackie Cahill, who had promised his members that he wanted to put farming on the political agenda, yesterday launched a major attack on the EU's farm policies.
At his organisation's agm, which all the political parties attended, Mr Cahill said the EU had blatantly let down Irish farming.
"At some time in the near future, the Irish people will be given an opportunity to vote on a referendum on a new constitution for Europe. Given the mistreatment of farmer by the EU and its barefaced failure to live up to its legal responsibilities under the Treaty of Rome, the ICMSA will be coming under extreme pressure to reverse its traditional support for these referendums," he said.
"The level of deserved hostility against the EU and its regulations and agencies is growing by the day. The EU juggernaut is out of control, demanding compliance with its rules, but failing to honour its obligations," he said.
He said the stage was being fast approached when there may be a legal challenge taken against the EU Commission and the council that they were in breach of the Treaty of Rome in failing to protect farm incomes.
Led by the Minister for Agriculture and food, Mary Coughlan, all the political parties set out their stalls before the membership at its meeting in Limerick racecourse, the last agm before the next election.
The Minister told the agm that the €100 million fund for the dairy processing industry, under which farmers can draw down seed funding to build manufacturing plants, was over subscribed.
Denis Naughten, Fine Gael's agriculture spokesman, said he was optimistic about the future of Irish farming but said farming should not be a byproduct of bureaucracy, as it is now.
Senator Kathleen O'Meara (Labour) proposed that the Government establish change of management courses for farmers who were leaving farming.