The resignation of the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, was demanded during a heated and well-attended debate on farming. The Government was condemned for failing to appreciate the scale of the crisis in agriculture, particularly the fodder shortage.
Some of the delegates gave the party's junior spokesman on agriculture, Mr Michael Ring, a standing ovation after a lively and colourful speech in which he said: "When Pee Flynn, Ray Burke and Charles J. Haughey were setting up their fodder scheme, they didn't take £40, £50 or £100. You know what they took, and it didn't go to the farmers of Ireland."
He said the best the Minister could come up with to deal with the fodder crisis was £300 per farmer. "This money would not last a week."
Mr Michael Murphy (Carlow) said Government funding did not reflect the scale of hardship being experienced by farmers. Mr Sean Lynch, of the Fine Gael agricultural group, said he was not aware that the Minister for Agriculture had ever visited the farms or marts in the west of Ireland. "Cattle are being sold at rock-bottom prices because farmers have no fodder to feed them. Providing £300 per farm is an insult in this day and age. It would only buy five bales of silage and a ton of meal."
Ms Elaine Byrne (Wicklow) said: "Farmers, particularly young farmers, are very like the Progressive Democrats. They are a dying breed. In the case of the farmers, this is a tragedy."
Replying to the debate, the party's spokesman on agriculture, Mr Paul Connaughton, said farmers felt threatened and insecure. "What they have seen over the past year-and-a-half is that there is no help from the Government, irrespective of what happens them."
Senator Tom Hayes said the situation was now so critical that unless drastic action was taken by the Government, many of the State's 150,000 farmers would be put out of business this winter.
The ardfheis decided that asylum-seekers waiting more than six months for a decision on their status should be given the right to work.
Delegates also backed a motion to introduce a statutory register of paedophiles in tandem with a comprehensive treatment programme for convicted sex offenders.
Mr Ivan Yates, the party spokesman on public enterprise, said Fine Gael was proposing a major investment of £1.3 billion in public transport. It would also promote national availability of courses in adult computer literacy.
Delegates voted to increase the income-exemption limit and allowance for carers. They also voted in favour of the immediate creation of a statutory Ombudsman for children. Mr Dan Neville, the party spokesman, said there were three compelling reasons why a Children's Ombudsman was necessary: the number of children in poverty, the lack of an overall mechanism to guarantee their rights and the lack of a public body to ensure they could access the public services they needed.