IFA DEAL:AN 11TH hour commitment by Brian Cowen that he would veto a world trade deal under current conditions yesterday persuaded the Irish Farmers' Association to back the Yes campaign ahead of the Lisbon Treaty.
The leadership of the 85,000-strong organisation had told the Government it would not be able to recommend a Yes vote if the Taoiseach was not prepared to say he would veto a World Trade Organisation deal.
After hours of behind-the-scenes negotiations over the weekend, which continued into yesterday morning, the 53-member IFA executive council unanimously agreed to recommend a Yes vote.
That meeting had been adjourned for nearly two hours to allow the discussions to be finalised, and after it IFA president Padraig Walshe said he was in no doubt that without the commitment from Mr Cowen, the executive would have recommended a No vote.
Asked if there was any opposition to the Yes recommendation, Mr Walshe said the delegates had arrived with a certain mindset before the meeting. "But that was because of the reluctance of the Government to give the reassurance that was needed on the WTO issue," he said.
The IFA claims that cuts to agriculture supports proposed by EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson in the WTO talks could result in 50,000 Irish farmers going out of business and the loss of 50,000 food processing jobs.
Mr Walshe said that as a result of the unanimous decision to recommend a Yes vote, the IFA would be writing to all its members urging them and their families to come out and vote Yes.
"Farmers are traditionally good people to vote and we will be doing all we can to encourage them to come out and we will be devising a strategy to cover the next 10 days," he said.
Asked if he thought Mr Cowen had left it too late to say he would veto a deal, Mr Walshe said that was a question which should be put to Mr Cowen, not to him.
"Mr Cowen now realises the importance of the whole WTO thing, but that is a question for him why it did not happen until today," he said.
When it was put to him that the Government was saying it had not changed its position on the issue, Mr Walshe said at no stage had the Government said what it was prepared to do in the event of an unacceptable WTO deal, but it had done so now.
"The Government was prepared to use the veto in relation to the corporate taxation issue and I could not understand why it could not do the same in relation to agriculture, which is of vital national interest," said Mr Walshe.
"We have been very consistent all along, particularly since the march in Dublin over the Mandelson deal."
He said the IFA had withdrawn from its previous Yes position because of the pace of the WTO negotiations which had appeared to be stalled in January, when the organisation said it would recommend a Yes vote.
IFA general secretary Michael Berkery said a veto was the highest level of opposition a Government could use to any European proposal and the word had a deep significance.
Mr Walshe said he was heartened by the Taoiseach's statement and hoped to move on together to get a Yes vote.
On the impact of the Government stating it was prepared to veto a bad WTO deal, Mr Walshe said this would encourage other countries and farm organisations to oppose what Mr Mandelson was proposing in Geneva.