The idea that Pat Rabbitte and the Labour Party would be willing to support farmers in a "self-styled alternative government" is not credible on any level, the Minister for Finance, Mr Cowen, claimed yesterday.
In a major statement on agriculture, the Minister launched a strong attack on the Opposition parties and singled out the Labour leader, in particular, when he addressed a Fianna Fáil party meeting in Birr, Co Offaly.
"The intended tánaiste and minister for finance has never been known to do anything other than oppose the interests of farmers. He has a crude and superficial view of farmers, best summed up by his 1994 statement that it was a scandal that the then minister for finance, Bertie Ahern, should have provided additional tax relief for farmers," he said.
"The position in regard to farmer taxation is a joke. During his short time in government, [ Mr Rabbitte] was also fully supportive of the infamous statement from his party leader that 'farmers are rolling in it'," said Mr Cowen.
"However, accept for a moment that he tones down these attitudes; farmers still need to ask themselves if they can seriously expect Pat Rabbitte to be there for them when they need support at critical times."
"Would he have allowed the funding for the Department for Agriculture to grow to €3 billion per annum, or keep up the resolute fight to protect farmers' interests at the EU and WTO," he asked.
"The idea that Pat Rabbitte and the Workers Party-controlled Labour Party would be willing to support farmers just is not credible on any level," he said.
" I think it is fair to predict that we will see Rabbitte in a pair of wellingtons patting livestock and rediscovering his rural roots. To fall for this you would have to ignore both experience and common sense," he said.
Criticising the Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, Mr Cowen said the "self-styled alternative government" would continue to "talk a good game" but with Labour and the Greens pushing hard, Fine Gael had already confirmed that no policy area would get in the way of their desire to get into government.
He added it was widely known that the Green Party's core instincts stood fundamentally against those of farmers trying to be a success in the 21st century.
"They have a naive, but sincere and consistent, set of beliefs which, if they ever became influential, would cause immediate and significant damage to farming communities. They have said they will only go into government if their policies are central to the agreed programme," he said.
He said Enda Kenny had glibly brushed away these concerns in his rush to welcome the Greens into the government he feels he will inevitably form.
This would be bad enough in itself, Mr Cowen said, "but farmers have a lot more to be worried about than the Green Party".
Launching his attack on the Labour Party, Mr Cowen said that every week new areas of direct contradiction between Labour and Fine Gael were revealed and brushed aside with the statement that they would come up with a joint policy after the election.
"In other words, they intend to cynically present directly opposing policies to different groups over the next 12 months, knowing already that they will abandon many of these positions within days."
Mr Cowen, who had defended his Government's record on agriculture, said farmers would have to make up their own minds about who would look after the best interests of farming in the future, and that in doing so they should look to how the difficult issues in recent times had been handled by the Government.