The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, had a three-hour meeting with the Irish Farmers' Association leadership in Dublin yesterday against a background of worsening relations between the Government and farmers.
The meeting came in the wake of an attack on "some farm leaders" in the Dáil by Mr Walsh on Tuesday night for linking support for the Nice Treaty to receiving assistance from the Government.
"In so doing, they run the danger of giving a confused message to their members and therefore of endangering their members' own interests," Mr Walsh told the Dáil.
However, he did accept there had been problems caused by market and weather difficulties, the basis on which the IFA and the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA) had sought meetings yesterday.
However, Mr Walsh had said there was no connection between these difficulties and the Nice Treaty and to make such a connection, however tenuous, carried enormous risks.
The IFA had gone to the meeting demanding "delivery" from the Government on a clear set of issues, and its president, Mr John Dillon, had said yesterday's meeting would be a test of the Government's response to the income crisis in farming.
Before the meeting, he had reiterated the IFA commitment to a Yes vote but said he was in no doubt that farmers would pass judgment on the Government's failure on the income crisis at the ballot box unless there was a determined and adequate response to the IFA's proposals.
The organisation claimed that this year average industrial wages would grow by 7 per cent while farmers' spending power was down by 20 per cent. Mr Dillon said 15,000 farm families had incomes of less than €200 a week.
The organisation had demanded that direct payment be brought foward and paid early this year, including arable aid payments for grain farmers. It also sought, as did the leadership of the ICMSA which met Mr Walsh immediately after his meeting with the IFA, a strong defence of Irish farmers' interests in the CAP review.
Mr Pat O'Rourke, the ICMSA president, sought a commission on farm incomes to set down both national and EU levels to restore profitable agriculture.
He also sought a targeted fodder purchase aid scheme to help farmers hit by the bad weather over the summer which the recent good weather had not eased for many farming families.