A warning that the farming community will use "total resistance" if any farmer is imprisoned for blockading a meat factory was issued last night by the Irish Farmers' Association president, Mr Tom Parlon.
A meeting of the IFA strike committee in Portlaoise continued until late last night. And a spokesman said the committee was "resolutely determined to continue the blockades and to extend them to all other plants in the country". He made this statement as his membership decided to continue picketing the Keepak meat plant at Clonee despite a High Court temporary injunction preventing picketing.
The warning came after a day of blockading and picketing of over 20 meat plants around the State by IFA members protesting at a £1.80 increase in veterinary inspection fees.
While production at the meat plants was virtually stopped by the action, the plants retaliated when one, Keepak, got an interim injunction preventing picketing or blockading of its Clonee premises, north of Dublin.
There was some scuffling and verbal abuse at some of the plants when the blockades were placed at 7 a.m. yesterday, but there were no arrests.
Pickets remained in place last night and some meat factory workers were told not to report for duty today.
The conflict has been caused by the imposition of additional meat inspection fees by the Department of Agriculture and Food on January 1st. It said yesterday the Government had decided to recover the full cost of meat inspection.
Until now the taxpayer had been bearing the £9.7 million shortfall in the cost of the service. Levies from the meat plants and farmers amounted to only £14.1 million.
The Department said one of the objectives of the decision was to provide an incentive to meat plants to manage their operations in such a way as to reduce the overall cost of the service by concentrating slaughter over a shorter period of time.
"There is no justification for the factories to increase slaughter fees and to impose a flat charge of £5.50 across the board because the level of costs will vary significantly from plant to plant," it said.
It added that while EU regulations allowed plants to pass on meat inspection fees to third parties on behalf of whom the activities are carried out, these regulations would permit them only to pass on that element of cost that relates to slaughtering.
But the Irish Meat Association chief executive, Mr John Smith, who said the action closed most meat plants yesterday, said the only illegality yesterday was the IFA picketing and blockading which had prevented meat either entering or leaving premises.
The IFA action, he said, was misdirected, and farmers should turn their attention on the Department of Agriculture which had failed to address the major inefficiencies that formed part of the meat inspection service.
He said there would be no trouble at the plants had the Department not increased the fee by 47 per cent, making the cost of inspection £7 per animal, more then twice the European average.