More than 5,000 farmers marched in central Dublin yesterday to demand the sacking of EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson over his handling of world trade negotiations.
The protest, which was organised by the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA), began outside the European Commission offices on Molesworth Street, occupied overnight by 10 IFA activists.
Led by a piper, 20 tractors, a combine, a milkfloat, a load of beet and a livestock carrier, the protesters chanted, "Out, out, out"!
IFA president John Dillon told the rally that there was only one place for Taoiseach Bertie Ahern - and that was beside Jacques Chirac.
He said the French leader was the only man prepared to stand up to Mr Mandelson.
"Tony Blair has tried many times to destroy the Common Agricultural Policy (Cap) in the past 10 years. When he failed at the heads of government [ summit], he sent his lapdog Mandelson to Brussels to destroy the Cap by the back door in the WTO [World Trade Organisation]," he said.
He said there was a commitment in the Fischler Cap reform that European farmers would supply European consumers and family farming would be secure until 2013.
"The new Cap is not one year in existence and politicians are back again, breaking their word," he said.
Mr Dillon called on Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan and the Council of Agriculture Ministers "to tear up Mandelson's mandate" as he was "hell-bent on imposing Britain's cheap food policy on Europe".
He added: "If Mandelson gets his way, Irish farm income will be cut by €800 million. That's a 35 per cent cut. It would bring the average family farm income to about €10,000 a year. That's €4.80 per hour which is far below the minimum wage of €7.65."
Mr Dillon said €1.2 billion would be slashed from the value of Irish farm output and 50,000 jobs would be lost in farming, the food industry and farm services.
"The future of Irish farming is on the table in Geneva. The Trade Commissioner is representing Europe at the table, and that is why we are here outside the EU offices," he said.
He told the cheering crowd that Mr Mandelson had been dumped from the British government twice. It was time for Europe to dump him now.
He told the protesters that his offer to cut import tariffs by 46 per cent would spell an end to Irish and European farming.
It would bring an end, he claimed, to quality control on food, to traceability, swine fever, foot-and-mouth and avian flu.
"Brazil will deliver us over 30-month-old beef, produced by slave labour and full of hormones. Mandelson is inviting in the South American ranchers at the expense of Irish and European farmers," he said.
A series of speakers from various commodity committees of the IFA painted a worst-case scenario for the protesters should the cuts being proposed be accepted.