The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, yesterday defended the £200 million-plus payments made by the Irish taxpayers to beef farmers to support prices during the BSE crisis earlier in the year.
Mr Walsh, who was delivering an end of year report to the media, said the beef industry was very important to the Irish economy as a whole and had to be supported.
"If we had not moved then there would have been a collapse in price and this would have had a major impact not only on farming but on the whole economy, especially the rural economy," he said.
Mr Walsh said the public had seen what had happened this year to the economy when it was hit by the foot-and-mouth crisis and because the sector was so important, the input was "deemed to be warranted"
Mr Walsh said the foot-and-mouth crisis had dominated all others from an agriculture perspective and had marked an important watershed in the relationship of the agricultural sector with the rest of the community and economy in this State.
He said that while an assessment of the economic impact of the one outbreak of the disease in the Republic was still being prepared, the net cost to the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development has been about £30 million.
He said that 278,025 cattle had been taken off the market in the Purchase for Destruction Scheme and a further 208,000 cattle had been slaughtered in an effort to support beef markets because of the impact of BSE and foot-and-mouth disease which had led to a dramatic drop in beef consumption earlier in the year.
Mr Walsh said he expected that the Egyptians would resume buying Irish beef next year.
On the dairy side, the Minister said he would continue to defend the system of quotas in the forthcoming review of the CAP later this year and would continue the policy of ensuring that surplus quotas be distributed to young farmers.
There had been, he said, a continuous downward trend in the number of bovine TB reactors in 2001 to 34,000 and there had been a significant improvement in the brucellosis rate of infection, which was down to 251 herds under restriction this year from 557 last year.
Prosecutions against those who were involved in illegal behaviour in farming would continue, he said. There had been 32 prosecutions taken this year which resulted in 32 convictions in which five jail sentences were imposed, mainly under the Animal Remedies Act.
Two persons were successfully prosecuted under BSE legislation and 90 cases were being processed.
Mr Walsh said it would be pointless at this stage to speculate on farm income for next year. It was far too early to make meaningful predictions, he maintained.
However, if exotic diseases could be kept out, he did not see why farmers could not have as good a year as this one when, despite all the difficulties, farm income had held up well in most sectors, including the beef sector, which had a reasonable year.