The Minister for Agriculture yesterday promised that he would try to ensure that the net benefits of CAP reform were passed to consumers and not to supermarkets or meat plants.
Mr Walsh was speaking at a press conference outlining the effects of Agenda 2000 reforms on agriculture and the Irish economy when he introduced the 1998 annual review and outlook for agriculture.
Following the EU decisions, Mr Walsh said, he expected an overall increase of £325 million for beef producers and £192 million for milk producers, but a loss of £122.6 million in the cereal sector by 2006.
He said the net effect on producers over the period would be a gain of £394 million. There would also be a domestic gain of £271 million because of the expected drop in prices, making a total of £666 million.
Reminded that the expected bonus for consumers from the last reform of CAP had not happened, he said that was because prices did not fall as expected.
Asked if he would like to see gains going to supermarkets and beef factories rather than consumers, Mr Walsh said people in the Republic seemed to lack the ability to pass on such benefits to the consumer.
"I would like to see the benefits that we estimate coming from the deal being passed on to consumers, and something will have to be done to ensure that."
He said he would soon be travelling to Cairo to meet government ministers there to help ensure the continuation of the beef trade with Egypt. This trade took 100,000 tonnes of Irish beef last year.
He would also be travelling to Jordan and the Gulf states. They were taking 45,000 tonnes of quality cuts of beef from the Republic and were fast becoming a very important market.
Efforts, he said, were continuing to have the Iranian and Libyan markets reopened on the basis of protocols which were already signed.
He added that there was a strong live trade in cattle to Lebanon, which had already taken 13,000 cattle this year and had the potential to take 30,000 in 1999.
On the annual report, Mr Walsh said it dispelled some myths about the agriculture sector, such as the impression that agriculture was no longer important in the Celtic Tiger economy.
The report showed, he said, that the agri-food sector, including drinks and tobacco, accounted for 12 per cent of GNP, 11.9 per cent of employment and 12 per cent of exports. Agri-food, because of its low import content, contributed 33 per cent to total net foreign earnings.
He said the report also showed that the population of rural Ireland was rising. Between 1971 and 1996, its share of population increased from 40 per cent to 42 per cent.
"Again there is the frequently repeated statistic that 80 per cent of direct payments are paid to the richest 20 per cent of farmers. In fact, the report show this is a piece of fiction. In fact, 80 per cent of payments are shared by the top 60 per cent, in farm income terms, of farmers."
He said the report also dispelled the myth that Irish farms were small: they were above the EU average and were the seventh-largest in the EU.
He added that, according to the EU, farm incomes in the Republic had risen by 24 per cent since 1990, and this was the third-highest rate of farm income growth across the EU.
Mr Walsh also praised the professionalism of his staff in their dealings with the public and said the Ombudsman had used special powers to get information from the Department. The use of Section 7 was unnecessary.
He defended the performance of Department of Agriculture staff which, he said, had continued to deliver many services very quickly.
He said the performance of senior officials at the CAP reform talks had placed the State ahead of other nations because they had models to predict the impact of proposed changes.
"It was because of their work that a potential loss to Ireland of £1.3 billion was turned into a gain of £666 million," he said.