The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, defended penalties to be imposed on farmers who breach the new "Good Farming Practice" code which he launched yesterday at the Horse Show.
The Minister said most of the penalties for breaching environmental and other schemes were not draconian. However, farmers who used illegal growth promoters and banned substances or who had not protected historical or archaeological monuments on their lands would lose subsidies.
Farmers had already been imprisoned for using illegal substances and that would continue. Irish controls in these areas were the strictest in Europe and went beyond EU regulations, he said. These had been agreed with the farm organisations.
The code, said Mr Walsh, would inform farmers about their obligations, set out the regulations and list penalties for breaches of the environment, animal health, welfare and hygiene regulations.
There was an obligation on national authorities to implement measures under the CAP schemes set up to ensure minimum environmental standards were met and that penalties be imposed if not.
Observance of the code, he said, would maintain Ireland's green, clean image which had served the food and tourism industries so well. It would also ensure the £1 billion a year in direct payments would be secured into the future.
Mr Pat O'Rourke, president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association, said his organisation had signed up to the code but still regarded it as "unfinished business".
"We signed up to this document and there is nothing in it that we object to but it will come down in the end to its implementation and interpret at ion." The Irish Farmers' Association said it, too, was fully committed to the code but found it unacceptable that new penalties were being introduced for infringements on top of the detailed penalties which already exist.
Mr John Dillon, IFA deputy president, said that farmers' commitment to extensive farming methods, environmental schemes, traceability and quality assurance schemes was evident from the numbers who took part.