The Government should help ensure the survival of small rural shows by acting to reduce the cost of insurance, the chairman of the Irish Shows Association has said. Seán MacConnell reports from the Tullamore Show
Mr Paddy Joe Foy made the plea at the opening of Tullamore National Livestock Show yesterday.
Mr Foy said many of the smaller shows attracting attendances of 1,000 to 1,500 people were becoming unable to pay insurance costs.
He said that while he was fully in support of people who were seriously injured getting proper compensation and that was the job of insurance companies to cover them, he was aware of false claims.
"Fraudulent claims have been made and I can prove it. These people when they get the cheque, they quickly throw away the collar and walking sticks and you could not get a better miracle from Knock or Fatima," he said.
"I am appealing to the Government to ensure that these small shows, which are part of our rural heritage, are not driven out of business because of insurance costs," he said.
Mr Foy was speaking at the official opening of the event which was attended by nearly 50,000 people, the largest turn-out since the event was revived 13 years ago.
The show, the largest one-day agricultural event of its kind, also had another first, the first demonstration at the official opening which was staged by pig producers protesting over the import of foreign pigmeat.
They held up placards at the ceremony demanding that the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, introduce proper labelling to indicate the country of origin of pigmeat.
Spokesman Mr Conor O'Brien said imported pigmeat was being sold under some of our best-known brand names.
The 30 protesters received support from one of the platform party, Mr Tom Parlon, Minister of State for Finance, who is also a pig producer. "It is unfair that Irish consumers are hoodwinked into buying something that they do not want," said Mr Parlon.
He said the issue of proper labelling would be addressed following the implementation of CAP reforms.
The Irish Farmers Association president, Mr John Dillon, used the occasion to warn the beef factories that the CAP reform agreement in Brussels on decoupling would radically change the economics of livestock production in Ireland.
"For decoupling and livestock production to work in the future, market prices will have to increase significantly.
"In the new set-up, production will only be sustained with an economic market return," Mr Dillon said.
"This means prices will have to increase to meet our real costs of production and provide a viable margin to livestock farmers," he said.
"Decoupling will exclude the premium payments from the calculation and I warn the factories that if the price is not adequate, farmers will not produce," he added.
The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association president, Mr Pat O'Rourke, said that unless the income position of calf and weanling producers was protected in CAP reform, Ireland's beef producing herd of 1.1 million cows would decline dramatically.
"Farmers will simply walk away from suckler (beef) production as it will not be viable and dairy farmers will suffer more losses on top of the losses on the milk," he said.
He said that up to 600,000 male calves were traded annually without having drawn a premium at an estimated loss of over €300 per head without any prospect of this being recovered in the marketplace.
The president of the Irish Cattle and Sheepfarmers Association, Mr John Deegan, said the quality stock on show in Tullamore would be the foundation of the future quality food industry in which Irish farm produce would be properly rewarded by the consumer.