Farmers stage picket to protest at Kinsale grain importation

Farmers staged a picket yesterday to protest against delivery of a consignment of English wheat at the port of Kinsale, Co Cork.

The protesters prevented the discharge of wheat from the Heidberg for almost three hours.

Hired by a Dublin firm, Torc Grain and Feed, the vessel had arrived at the port on Tuesday evening with a 2,750-tonne consignment.

The protest was mounted two days after the Competition Authority raided the headquarters of the Irish Farmers' Association in an investigation of a blockade at Drogheda port in Co Louth. The authority arrived unnannounced at the offices in Bluebell, Dublin, and seized files.

The Drogheda blockade on August 31st resulted in an importer agreeing last week to withhold the wheat from the Irish market by putting it into storage.

An IFA spokesman said the association had not organised the protest in Kinsale. He would not comment further. However, it is thought that a number of the protesters were IFA members.

The case is sensitive because the Competition Authority is investigating possible breaches of the Competition Act at the Drogheda blockade, which involved some 400 farmers.

The authority said on Monday that it would consider legal action should evidence emerge that the Act was breached in Drogheda. The Act prohibits restrictions on competition in the market.

The IFA claimed the investigation was unnecessary and "high-handed". The protesters in Drogheda had claimed that the importation of British grain could lower the price paid to cereal-growers here for Irish crops.

A Competition Authority spokesman said last night it was monitoring the situation in Kinsale.

A small group of farmers are thought to have arrived at Kinsale port at 3 p.m. yesterday. According to a Torc Grain and Feed spokesman, they said they wanted to protest for half-an-hour against the importation of English wheat.

But an hour later the number of protesters had swelled to 50. The protest was lifted at 5.45 p.m. after the intervention of a local warehousing company.

The Torc spokesman said the company agreed to meet farmer representatives last night. The protesters had claimed to the company that they were not representing the IFA, he said.

The company had agreed to engage with the farmers on the basis that it would give no undertakings that were against its commercial interest. It would continue the unloading of the wheat.