About 50 farmers are staging a sit-in at the European Commission offices in Dublin to protest about plans to cut the EU’s budget for agriculture.
Led by the Irish Farmers Association, they entered the building on Molesworth Street just after 4pm yesterday and said they would stay until EU talks on its overall budget from 2014-2020 concluded. The heads of government began the talks in Brussels last night. The farmers said it was a peaceful protest and they were prepared for a long sit- in.
Last week European Council president Herman van Rompuy proposed a €25 billion cut to the agriculture budget, leading to IFA claims that Ireland could lose as much as €1 billion between 2014 and 2020.
