Farmers occupied the lobby of the Department of Agriculture in Dublin last night in protest over the Government's handling of the crisis in the industry.

More than 20 members of the national executive of the Irish Farmers' Association who entered the building yesterday afternoon said they planned to stay there until the successful outcome of a series of meetings today.

The IFA president, Mr Tom Parlon, who led the sit-in, demanded and got a meeting with the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh.

Later Mr Parlon told reporters that the 50-minute meeting with Mr Walsh had been most unsatisfactory. Farmers were at their wits' end, he said, and were getting no support from the Minister.

"We are staying here until the outcome of the two meetings to be held tomorrow and then we will decide what we will do. We may have to take much tougher action. This is only the start," he said.

Mr Walsh rejected the IFA leader's claim that nothing was being done. He said today's meetings were with the EU Commission and with the meat factories.

Mr Walsh criticised the meat plants which had submitted EU intervention tenders for only 590 tonnes of beef over the next fortnight when they should have tendered for four times that amount.

"Can they not see the people they are hitting most are their own suppliers, and some of the factories involved are actually controlled by farmers themselves? I will be expressing my extreme disappointment to them," he said.

Mr Walsh said he also expected the Commission to agree changes in the intervention system to allow more cattle into cold stores next Friday. He had called for an emergency meeting of the EU beef management committee so killing for intervention could begin as quickly as possible.