Dairy farmers from all over the State were last night continuing a blockade of the Natural Dairies Plant, Convoy, Co Donegal, despite an interim High Court order restraining them from doing so.
The order was obtained by the Competitions Authority whose chairman, Dr John Fingleton, said the blockade was an attempt to force up the retail price of a two-litre carton of milk from 86p to 95p and was a restriction of competition.
He called on the farmers to obey the order or he would go to the High Court later today to get the Garda to enforce it.
Yesterday, 30 farmers who have been blockading the plant which supplies milk to Dunnes Stores, ignored a company representative who pinned notice of the order on vehicles used in the blockade.
Farmers turned away one tanker load of milk which arrived at the plant and prevented a small consignment for a local supplier from leaving. There were minor scuffles when this milk was being removed and a number of cartons which were being passed out over the dairy wall fell to the ground splattering milk over the roadway. Gardai intervened to restore order.
A spokesman for the farmers said they were aware of the court order but the two named individuals were not on the picket. They would be seeking legal advice on the order's application which states that it applies to "any other person having notice of the order". The court would have to be satisfied that all picketers had a full copy of the order.
Dr Fingleton said the official version of the order would be served on the picketers, and "if the order has still not been complied with at that stage we'll clearly have to get the gardai to enforce the order".
Asked if the order would cover a "rolling picket" of constantly changing individuals, he said the order applied to the named individuals and anyone else who had notice of it, so such a rolling picket "wouldn't be possible".
The farmers who are manning the blockade said last night they are not being organised by the Irish Farmers' Association, although most said they were IFA members.