The Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Mr Walsh, said in Brussels yesterday that he expected the farming organisations and the meat factories to be fully involved in and supportive of sheep-tagging.
The Minister, who was attending a meeting of farm ministers which was discussing the foot-and-mouth and the BSE crises, repeated that "with or without the support of farmers, this programme is going ahead".
During the height of the threat from foot-and-mouth from Britain, the main farm organisations had agreed tagging would have to be put in place to prevent the smuggling of sheep into the Republic from Britain.
However, last Friday, Department of Agriculture officials, who had a three-hour meeting with the farming organisations, complained there was no progress on the issue and their reluctance amounted to obstruction of the scheme. The Labour Party spokesperson on consumer affairs, Dr Mary Upton, said that opposition to the scheme called into question the farm organisations' commitment to food safety.
There was an angry reaction from the farm organisations yesterday. Mr Tom Parlon, the president of the Irish Farmers' Association, denied there was any attempt at obstruction. The IFA, he said, was fully committed to a comprehensive and effective system of sheep tagging and traceability but it was essential that any system must be simple, credible and meet the requirements of the export and domestic markets.
He said the details in the proposals on sheep identification presented by the Department to the IFA for the first time last Friday were bureaucratic and unworkable. He set out a list of alternative proposals he said his organisation would present to Mr Walsh this week.
The president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association, Mr Pat O'Rourke, rejected the allegation that his organisation was opposed to sheep-tagging. He called on Mr Walsh to "rein in" his Department on the issue and said the allegations against the farm organisations had been made by unnamed but quoted sources within the Department.
"I find this calculated, slanted disclosure to the press shameful and a complete dis-reaction at a time when there should be unity of purpose to deal with the national emergency in the livestock sector," he said.
He said the nonsense by the Department in its attempt to blame others should be brought to a halt by Mr Walsh and the Department's secretary general, Mr John Malone.