MORE THAN 1,000 angry sheep farmers from all over the country gave an angry reception to Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith in Tullamore, Co Offaly, last night where he met the Irish Farmers’ Association publicly for the first time since the Budget.
The Minister had accepted the invitation from the IFA to attend the meeting before the Budget, which contained the suspension of major farm schemes, was brought forward.
The Minister was heckled as he delivered his script on the sheep sector. Fog horns were sounded and there were shouts of “you are a disgrace” as he told them there was a future for the sheep industry but action was needed now.
During a question-and-answer session when Galway delegate Michael Silke said he was disappointed and there was “nothing in what you said”, there was loud applause and roars of approval.
There was even greater applause when Michael Holmes from Mayo attacked the “civil servant” who had never been near a sheep farm and who had written the Minister’s script, which contained nothing. A countyman of the Minister’s, Richard Moran, said when he met the Minister seven years ago he had 700 sheep. Now he had only 120.
He said unless there was money forthcoming there would be no industry left.
Michael Biggins of Mayo said he feared the Minister’s microphone had been switched off when he was at the Cabinet table because he had not stood up for sheep farmers, who were being robbed.
Mr Smith was offered a chance to “redeem himself” by getting the money for sheep farmers out of Europe and he was told by James Reynolds from Longford that he was not inspired by the Minister’s performance to get the money.
The Minister was told by IFA president Pádraig Walshe at the beginning of the session that the cuts were “unacceptable” and must be revisited as they were stifling agriculture but their job was to get a €30 per ewe payment for sheep from the EU.
The Department of Agriculture, said Mr Walshe, had not delivered to the package and there was now a real problem in the sector where the national flock had fallen by a quarter of a million animals to just over 2.5 million now.
The Minister defended the cuts made in the Budget and said difficult decisions had to be made to protect the advances made over the last decade.
He said he would need the support of the other 26 countries to get a €30 per head maintenance payment for their ewes as had been suggested by Liam Aylward in his report for the European Parliament, but many of these countries were not as interested in the industry as Ireland.
Mr Smith, who took notes of what the farmers were saying, said he was aware of all the difficulties they faced.