Fine Gael is to table a Dáil motion calling for the reversal of the Government increase of disease levies, one of the demands of the farmers who protested throughout the Republic this week.
The party's agriculture spokesman, Mr Billy Timmins, said yesterday the levy had been introduced with the agreement of farmers. However, the increase - costing farmers €10 million - had been done without consultation and represented "a breach of good faith".
In a reference to the statements by a number of Fianna Fáil deputies in support of the farmers, he said: "This motion will provide an opportunity for any member of the Oireachtas, including those members of the Government who claim to support the farmers, to put their money where their mouth is."
The former Taoiseach, Mr John Bruton, called for a new national agricultural policy.
"Over the last 30 years," he said, "a structure of agricultural support has been developed which deprives farmers of their traditional independence as business people, who produced goods that people wanted at a fair price in free conditions.
"Agricultural policy has become an instrument of social engineering driven by pressure groups, which takes little account of the needs of farmers and their families. Little distinction is made between those farmers who depend exclusively on farming for a living and those who have other incomes."
These policies had driven land prices to a level where the traditional mobility in land ownership, which facilitated progress, had virtually come to a halt.
"While asset-rich, many farmers live in poverty. In the last year incomes have fallen dramatically because of inflation and bad weather."
The former leader of Fine Gael said the Government had no long-term policy and was allowing people in the farming sector to age, in the hope that the passage of years would solve the problem.
"Farmers should be allowed to farm rather than have to keep their eye constantly on the machinations of negotiators in obscure management committees in Brussels. We need new thinking."
A Fianna Fáil deputy, Mr John Curran, called on the IFA leader, Mr John Dillon, "to show true leadership" by entering talks with the Minister for Agriculture. "I do not believe that further protests will educate people in urban areas about the grievances which farmers have," he said.
One of the areas which should be looked, he added, was the wide gap between farm-gate prices and the prices consumers in Dublin supermarkets had to pay.