The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, had "absolutely no doubt" that the decision opting to fully break the link between farm production and direct EU payments was the correct one.
Ireland was the first EU country to go for what is known as "full decoupling" in the package agreed to reform the Common Agricultural Policy last year.
Mr Walsh told journalists attending the first Bord Bia national conference for beef and sheep farmers in Tullamore, that he had been puzzled by reports that elements within farming now wanted a different system.
"We had an extensive programme of consultation and before taking the decision we took advice and accepted submissions from many quarters."
He said the Department had held 40 meetings across the State where the full information was available to the farming community. Mr Walsh said there were 135,000 farmers and yet only 270 people had responded to extensive advertising asking for submissions on difficulties that the new regulations would create because of specific problems.
"There has been a high degree of acceptance of the policy which I see as one which will free farmers to farm," he said.
Mr Walsh, who officially opened the conference which was attended by more than 400 farmers, said he had opted to make a quick decision to help farmers adapt to the new conditions.
There had been an overwhelming response from farmers in favour of full decoupling, said Mr Walsh who added that it would allow farmers to respond to market demands without the need to engage in production solely to qualify for direct payments.
"It will most certainly mean an end to the production of inferior stock and serious farmers will stay in the business and in my view, they will scale up."
He said it would appear from all the studies which had been carried out that beef production over Europe would fall. His main concern about that was the already high level of non-EU beef imports on which full tariffs had been paid. He feared this might flow over into the World Trade negotiations with increased pressure to allow more imports. He did not want that to happen.
The Minister said there were delays at European level on implementing the package and the full legal text governing the reforms would not be available until Easter. So far only Germany, Austria and Denmark had announced their decision on decoupling, the former opting for full decoupling on a regionalised rate.
He said a major task faced his Department to have the premium payments which existed up to now, replaced by a Single Farm Payment by January 2005.
Mr Walsh said he hoped to be able to resolve the issues which had arisen in relation to the new animal transport regulations. The current proposals, if unaltered, would make it very difficult for Irish exporters to continue to do business economically and they could wreck the live export trade.