THE Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, yesterday urged the Taoiseach to intervene to end the dispute between the IFA and the meat-processors.
Mr Ahern should intervene because he was a member of the Government responsible for the maintenance and development of social partnership, and the IFA was a key participant in this partnership, he said.
The Taoiseach should bring together all relevant Ministers in a pro-active effort to resolve the dispute, Mr Bruton said. These included the Tanaiste, the Competition Authority and the Minister for Finance.
"The current developments involving the IFA, including the massive fines imposed upon them, derive from a dispute which started when the Government decided to impose increased veterinary inspection fees," the Fine Gael leader said in his letter to Mr Ahern.
"The dispute has now escalated, and the Government became involved far too late in seeking to prevent it reaching its present acute level."
Meanwhile, the Fine Gael agriculture spokesman, Mr Paul Connaughton, said the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, had neither the moral authority nor the political competence to deal with the escalating crisis.
"A solution to this damaging crisis has to be found urgently before hard-won beef export contracts are permanently lost, livestock farmers' livelihoods are utterly ruined and meat industry workers' jobs are lost," Mr Connaughton said.
"The sooner the meat-processors accept that their relationship with beef-producers must change fundamentally, the sooner a new climate of partnership and trust will be built up between all parties."