AGRICULTURAL POLICY:THE LEADERS of the three main parties have pledged support to secure all of the €1.3 billion farmers receive from the EU in the forthcoming Common Agricultural Policy negotiations.
Micheál Martin, Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore made their promises to a meeting of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) executive council at a meeting in the IFA’s Dublin headquarters.
The trio delivered speeches to the executive during which they promised to oppose any Mercosur trade deal with Latin American countries which would damage Irish exports if EU standards of production were not adhered to.
Mercosur is the largest trading bloc in South America.
After their presentations they were questioned by many of the 53-member executive. However they refused to give commitments on restoring suspended farm schemes unless savings could be found elsewhere.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin was first to address the meeting. Many expressed surprise at his grasp of the agriculture brief given his urban roots.
He did, however, as one man put it, “arrive armed with the Minister for Agriculture, Brendan Smith”, but did not seek his support while delivering his policy agenda or answering questions.
Mr Smith made one promise: to open applications for the argi-environment options scheme for farmers leaving the rural environment protection scheme before the middle of March.
Mr Martin was critical of Fine Gael’s plan to create a new one-stop shop for making all payments which would take agri-payments away from the Department of Agriculture and Food. He predicted such a move would take agri-payments away from the department best qualified to deal with them, and would create a “degree of chaos” which would damage the payment system.
However, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said it did not make sense that 1,500 offices were dealing with payments from farm grants to education grants. Duplication could be replaced by efficiency.
Although told by one of the questioners that the IFA was opposed to such a move, Mr Kenny said he had been told by civil servants the amount of waste in such areas was “nothing short of obscene”.
Mr Kenny, accompanied by his agriculture spokesman Andrew Doyle, said because of Fine Gael’s membership of the European People’s Party in Europe – the biggest grouping in Europe – it was best placed to influence not only Common Agricultural Policy reform but trade deals.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore stressed Labour was aligned to the second largest party in the European Parliament, the socialist grouping, and said it would be important to have a “foot in two camps” in Europe.
He, like the others, came out in support of a Climate Change Bill which did not exceed EU standards. Like the other party leaders he said the national cattle herd should be protected.
Mr Gilmore said he was aware of the importance of EU payments to farm families, and said supporting agriculture to create jobs was core to party policy.
He said he had seen the election of Ruairí Quinn as the first Labour minister for finance and he would love to see the first Labour minister for agriculture.
He was asked about Labour’s taxation policies, especially those relating to site valuation tax which he said would not be introduced until 2015. Labour did not envisage taxing land used for productive purposes.
Sinn Féin and the Green Party leaders had been invited but said they could not attend.
IFA president John Bryan welcomed the strong commitments on the defence of the Cap budget and on the Mercosur deal.