Madam, - Ruairí Quinn's article, entitled "Off the farm and into the future" would have been better titled "Off the facts and into the fiction".
I can say without fear of contradiction that I have never seen such ignorance of agricultural matters so publicly displayed - indeed, trumpeted.
In making his chaotic case for the Government to press for the position of Commissioner of Research and the Information Society, Mr Quinn does indeed highlight a desperate requirement for someone of the highest calibre to be appointed to the position: if his own command of research and information is any guide to the ability we are at present asked to accept, then the incoming Commissioner's work is cut out for him or her.
Let us quickly move through Mr Quinn's suppositions.
On what authority does Mr Quinn announce that France and Germany have already "fixed the broad outlines" of the next Agriculture Commissioner's remit?
It is surely not enough to say that both of those countries can simply override the interests of the other 23 member-states without any reference to the Commissioner, whoever he or she may be.
Perhaps if Ireland took an interest in filling the position we might be in a position to benefit the farmers and consumers of all the member-states and not merely stand by while two of the more powerful member states "carve-up" the agricultural funds in the manner so improbably described by Ruairí Quinn.
In seeking to explain why the Government should not seek the Agriculture portfolio, Mr Quinn actually makes the most compelling case for the Government to do exactly that. Perhaps that is what he intended.
On what basis does Mr Quinn so disparagingly describe the Department of Agriculture and Food?
Mr Quinn's treatment of the Department and its civil servants is insulting to the point of being contemptuous, as well as being plainly wrong.
On what basis can Joe Walsh be considered so tainted by service in the Department of Agriculture and Food that he is rendered useless?
Is Mr Quinn really suggesting that the civil servants who staff the Department, or indeed the officials who attend the EU Commissioner for Agriculture, are so completely overawed by the farming organisations that they serve merely as a glorified rubber stamp?
How else are we expected to understand Mr Quinn's characteristically airy pronouncement that Mr Walsh "has imbued that culture for so long that in Brussels he would be a hostage to the farmers and unable to adequately serve the consumers".
Mr Walsh and the civil servants must speak for themselves, but I take grave exception to the notion that the interests of farmers and consumers are, somehow at odds and that an Agriculture Commissioner must choose between their welfares.
This is the real flaw in Ruairí Quinn's argument: the choice is not between the interests of farmers and consumers, it is not a case of "either/or".
It is perfectly possible for any decent and competent politician to strike the necessary balance.
How does Ruairí Quinn think that any portfolio of Government or Commission functions?
In precisely the same way, Ireland is not faced with a future that is either technological or agricultural, that is a false choice presented by false logic and false argument. Why cannot we foster both sectors? Why must agriculture and agri-food suffer for IT? - Yours, etc.,
PAT O'ROURKE, President, ICMSA, John Feely House, Dublin Road, Limerick.