The Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, has called on the Government to take urgent action to restore the live cattle export trade and to find new markets for Irish farmers.
Speaking in Brussels after a meeting with the EU Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, the Fine Gael leader said that the commissioner had acknowledged that the live cattle trade is an essential weapon for Irish farmers in securing higher prices from the processing industry.
"The Government and the Minister for Agriculture have been in office for six years and they have failed to find new markets for Irish farmers," Mr Kenny said.
He said that Mr Fischler had pointed out that prices earned by Irish farmers for milk and cattle are at just half the level of those in France. The Commissioner suggested that the problem lay in a lack of competition in the food-processing industry and Ireland's failure to enter some markets for high-quality food products.
Mr Kenny expressed to the Commissioner the concern felt by many Irish farmers over proposals to reform the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). At the heart of the proposed reform is a plan to "decouple" farmers' incomes from their level of production.
He said that Mr Fischler had assured him that the Commission would reject a proposal by some large EU member-states for "partial decoupling", whereby some products would be decoupled from production and others would not. Farmers fear that such an arrangement would lead to a fall in production while retaining the present, high level of red tape required for farmers to receive subsidies.
Mr Kenny said that Fine Gael's membership of the European People's Party, to which Mr Fischler also belongs, gave him a line of communication that is not available to Fianna Fáil.