MEP LIAM Aylward was criticised by Ireland East MEP Mairéad McGuinness in the European Parliament yesterday for saying there would be no support among farmers for a second Lisbon Treaty vote unless the issue of over-inspection of farms was tackled.
Ms McGuinness and Mr Aylward were among the Irish contributors to a major debate on the "health check" of the Common Agricultural Policy, which is part of the consultation policy on the reforms to be negotiated today by EU farm ministers in Brussels.
"The comments do a serious disservice to farmers. Much of the over-regulation of farming is down to how the Irish authorities and the Department of Agriculture interpret EU directives," she said.
"And the Government allows the public sector to add unnecessary complexity to the schemes without due regard to the implications on the farm and on the agri-business sector," she said.
"Liam Aylward was a junior minister. What did he do to reduce red tape or to engage with farmers about how cross-compliance can be met without choking their businesses to death?" she asked.
"Blaming the EU for all our woes is unjustified, and that practice, typified by Mr Aylward's comments, is one of the many reasons why there was a No vote to Lisbon," she said.
Marian Harkin, the North West MEP, claimed helicopters and 61 ground inspectors descended on Connemara to count sheep in a Single Farm Payment exercise which "more resembled the invasion of Iraq rather than the benign hand of Europe. In recent weeks we had a number of helicopters, flanked by 61 ground inspectors, counting the sheep on the hills of Connemara, a small area where the price of sheep will not even repay the investment by farmers," she said.
This was a wasteful exercise, she added, and conveyed an image of an over-bureaucratic Europe acting in a totally disproportionate manner, which was bad for agriculture and bad for Europe.
The EU commissioner for agriculture, Mariann Fischer Boel, defended the Cap and said it was necessary to simplify the system and to switch funds from direct farm income support to rural development programmes.