The Government has said it will listen to arguments that it should fund farmers' representatives to attend the forthcoming Earth Summit in South Africa after Labour calls for it to do so.
The Labour Party agriculture spokesman, Mr Jack Wall, claimed yesterday the Government had decided not to fund an IFA delegation despite spending "huge amounts" to send 35 Government delegates.
However a spokesman for the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Mr Cullen, said yesterday the Minister was "more than willing to listen to any case to spend taxpayers' money to pay for farmers' representatives" to attend the event which takes place in Johannesburg.
He pointed out that both main farmers' organisations had representatives on the Government-sponsored environment forum, Comhar.
Comhar is sending a delegation to the world environment summit, but has not chosen any of its farmer members on its three-person team.
Mr Wall said yesterday that an IFA delegation was refused money despite the decision of the Department of the Environment to pay for some non-governmental organisations to go.
These included some "small, obscure bodies", he maintained.
"Given the environmental content of the debate at the upcoming summit, and given the enormous role that the farming community has to play in the protection of our environment, it would be very important in my view that the farming community is represented at, and involved in, the discussions at the Earth Summit," Mr Wall said in a statement yesterday.
"The IFA would make a tremendous contribution to the formulation of international environmental policy for the next decade, as this is to be discussed in South Africa.
"Reports that the cost of sending a 35-strong Government delegation to the Earth Summit will run to hundreds of thousands of euro are eye-opening in the context of the refusal to grant funding to the IFA to send a small delegation to the summit," he said.
He said he was disappointed that neither the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, nor his colleague Mr Cullen had replied to correspondence.
Mr Wall said this correspondence was sent some weeks ago.
"In the context of the huge cost of sending the Government delegation to South Africa, I would appeal to them to include the IFA in the funding available for this purpose," Mr Wall said.