A EUROPEAN Union-backed campaign to encourage environmentally-friendly farming has cost €3 billion over the last 15 years and is no longer affordable, the Department of Agriculture has said.
The Cabinet last week decided exclude new applicants to the fourth round of the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme (Reps)from last week, with little, if any, warning.
Fianna Fáil TDs are to seek talks with Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith following a wave of protests by the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) about the decision at constituency offices and homes . However, the department emphasised that the decision was not one that was taken by Mr Smith alone, “but, rather, it was taken by the Cabinet”, a spokeswoman told The Irish Times.
“The Minister hinted that this decision would have to be taken when he said in April that he would have to review the situation.
“Over €3 billion has been paid out in this programme since it was first started in 1994. Given the economic difficulties, that level of funding really can’t continue,” said the spokeswoman.
Last night, the IFA warned that thousands of farmers would be faced with a “dire income crisis” because the decision could cost many already cash-strapped farmers another €9,000.
IFA president Padraig Walshe said the Minister’s decision to close the Reps scheme, coupled with a further cut in disadvantaged areas supports, represented “the last straw for the hard-pressed farming sector”.
Farmers who are already signed up for Reps IV will continue to receive payments over the next five years, while those signed up for Reps III will continue to qualify until this programme draws to its scheduled end in 2011.
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the weekend and again yesterday, Fianna Fáil backbenchers are to be in touch in coming days with Mr Smith in a bid to see if anything can be done to avert protests.
FF TD for Meath West Johnnie Brady, who chairs his parliamentary party’s agriculture committee, said the IFA has put forward suggestions that would see money allocated to other agricultural areas moved, and transferred to Reps IV.
Making it clear that the curbs on the scheme are “a serious concern” in his constituency, FF Cork North West TD Michael Moynihan said the decision “is seen as another blow for small- and medium-sized farmers”.
The scheme, which has some 62,000 members, is estimated to be worth on average €8,550 to participating farmers.
Up to 150 IFA members demonstrated outside the constituency offices of Mayo Fianna Fáil TD Beverley Flynn in Castlebar, with farmers warning that the decision would cost them €40 million.
Some 40 members of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association protested outside the department in Dublin yesterday, claiming farmers had been unfairly singled out for more cuts than any other sector.
Meanwhile, the IFA president strongly condemned those who threw eggs at the home of Fianna Fáil Cavan Monaghan TD Margaret Conlon on Saturday night.
Padraig Walshe said he had ordered protests held earlier that day to be called off when he learned that local activists had picketed Ms Conlon’s home, rather than her constituency office. There was no evidence that a member of the IFA had carried out the egg-throwing at her home, but he said there was no way that he could be responsible for the individual actions of each of the association’s 85,000 members, even if that was so.
