AGRICULTURE:THE IRISH Farmers' Association is expected to come down firmly on the side of either a Yes or No vote in the Lisbon referendum when its executive council meets next week.
IFA president Pádraig Walshe confirmed yesterday it would "give clear direction to our members, probably within the next week".
While no date for the meeting has been fixed, it is likely to be held next Wednesday and should bring to an end the IFA position where it has been refusing to tell its members to vote against the treaty or to support it.
The IFA has been threatening not to support the treaty unless the Government commits to vetoing a World Trade Organisation deal which would be bad for Irish agriculture. Mr Walshe said yesterday he was "determined that farmers will not wake up on June 13th to find that a WTO deal was conveniently postponed for a couple of weeks to get the Lisbon referendum passed in Ireland".
The IFA, which initially promised EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel that it would urge its members to vote Yes in the referendum, withdrew that advice at a protest meeting in Dublin when 10,000 people took to the streets.
The protesters were drawn from the ranks of the IFA, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, Macra na Feirme and agri-business, for the "Stop Mandelson" campaign which closed down the agri sector for the day.
Yesterday, reacting to comments made by EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson that only a very small minority of European ministers opposed his WTO deal, Mr Walshe said this was a clear warning to the Government that Mr Mandelson would gladly sell out Irish agriculture at the first opportunity. The Taoiseach should therefore use the veto before it was too late. He criticised Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin for his failure to block the cuts in farm supports proposed by Mr Mandelson, which Mr Walshe said would decimate the beef industry with the loss of one million beef cows, and cause massive job losses in food processing.
Farmers were now highly suspicious that the Government veto on taxation had been achieved at their expense, he said. Otherwise, they would be treated in the same way as business interests.
He claimed Mr Martin was attempting to long finger any WTO agreement until after the Lisbon referendum on June 12th. The IFA leader said now was the time for the Government to declare its veto of the deal and row back on some of the damage already caused by Mr Mandelson.
Separately yesterday, Mr Martin gave a categorical assurance that the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty would not affect Ireland's ability to exercise a veto in the WTO negotiations.
He said the treaty would leave the position on the use of a veto unchanged, and said no language in it changed that reality. "Unanimity will be required for the passing of any WTO [ agreement] post-Lisbon," he insisted.
The Minister, who is director of Fianna Fáil's referendum campaign, was speaking at a press conference on the treaty yesterday.
Addressing the farming community, he said: "We believe a Yes vote is strategically in the best interest of Irish farmers. We believe a No vote will weaken our hand considerably both in terms of negotiating WTO and also in terms of negotiating the reform of the Cap [ Common Agricultural Policy]. There is no discernible interest that we can see in Irish farmers voting No."
On the WTO negotiations, he said it was his view that no deal was imminent in the near future, or in the more medium term.