The EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Fisheries, Dr Franz Fischler, pledged to press on with his controversial CAP reform package when he visited Dublin yesterday.
The commissioner told a press conference that no statements had been made at the Brussels summit which "put the mid-term review proposals on ice".
During the day, in the course of which Dr Fischler met nearly 40 pressure groups, he was told by the Irish Meat Association, representing the meat factories, that his proposal to decouple production from direct payments would have "a dramatic negative impact".
A report compiled for the IMA by the Brendan Kearney and Associates said decoupling could cut the beef herd by up to 60 per cent. This meant the number of cattle produced would decline by 662,000 annually.
The number of breeding ewes would fall by up to 20 per cent.
Dr Fischler said he did not see how that could happen under the terms of his decoupling proposal. "If the factories are prepared to pay the price, the Irish farmers will produce." He also rejected the possibility that farmers would stop producing on receipt of a single cheque each year.
"Only a farmer prepared to maintain all his land in an agriculturally justifiable state, in line with the requirements of environmental protection, will receive the direct payments," he said. "The direct-income payments are socially justifiable only if the farmers receiving them respect the existing standards of consumer protection, environmental protection and animal welfare."
He went on to warn that in future, direct payments would be reduced in cases of non-compliance. "You can see that decoupling implies anything but a payment for doing nothing."
He conceded, however, that his proposals to reduce direct payments progressively by up to 20 per cent would have to be modified in the light of the budget structure put in place by the summit.
"The summit's decisions have not changed our objectives or the need to continue with the process of reforming the Common Agricultural Policy," he said.
"We need a more market orientated approach to agriculture. Agricultural production must be geared to demand, in other words, consumers' desires, not to artificially-created price incentives."
The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, said he had outlined his concerns to the commissioner and raised the situation in the beef export market.
The IFA president, Mr John Dillon, said his association was determined that Dr Fischler should defer any further reforms until after 2006.
The president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, Mr Pat O'Rourke, said he had told Dr Fischler that his proposals should be withdrawn.