The Government has been given one month by the Irish Farmers' Association to deliver on key demands to boost income. The deadline was imposed following a mass meeting of farmers yesterday which brought an estimated 40,000 on to the streets of Dublin.
Following the meeting, which brought the centre of Dublin to a standstill for six hours, the IFA leadership said it would repeat the exercise if its demands were not met and would pull out of Partnership 2000.
A key consideration will be whether the Government concedes on paying low-income families Family Income Supplement (FIS) payments, which families on PAYE are entitled to collect.
The IFA president, Mr Tom Parlon, said failure to extend the scheme to the families who needed it would determine whether the IFA would remain in Partnership 2000.
"Either there is a response, and we get equal treatment as social partners, or I will lead IFA out of this sham. This is no idle threat. We are not being treated as equal partners and I won't stand for it any longer."
Government sources indicated last night that the problem of low-income farm families could be addressed more speedily through a widening of the Smallholders' Assistance Scheme, commonly known as "farmers' dole".
Already some 7,000 low-income farmers collect £33 million under this scheme. The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, said in a statement last night that the scheme was being examined with a view to increasing its relevance to farm families.
The time given by the IFA will cover the Budget and it was made clear that the "winter of discontent", promised some weeks ago by the IFA, will intensify if FIS is not given to the 30,000 farm families who could qualify.
The IFA also wants Mr Walsh to confront the beef factories as it feels the Irish Meat Association has reneged on its deal with it and the Department of Agriculture which ended a two-day sit-in at the Department a fortnight ago.
Mr Parlon told the marchers, who had taken 2 1/2 hours to make their way to Merrion Square from Phoenix Park, that the Government would neglect farmers and their families at its peril.
He said the State would lose 50,000 farming jobs if the Government did not support the industry. The knock-on impact would be the whole-scale depopulation of rural areas.
All the main farming organisations took part in yesterday's march. Mr Parlon said the march was "not a protest but a movement" which had awakened Ireland to the plight of Irish farmers and their families.
The industry, he said, was facing its gravest crisis in a generation, with falling prices for beef, sheep, pigs and cereals and a fodder shortage caused by bad weather.
There was, however, plenty of criticism of the march, which city traders said cost them £3 million in lost business.
Fianna Fail's Mr Ivor Callely TD, chairman of the Joint Committee on Enterprise and Business, said farmers had damaged their own cause. Such marches were an anachronism and industries and services suffered because the farmers had failed to use radio, television and the Internet to make their point.