The IFA and the Department of Agriculture seemed to be moving closer to finding a solution to the farm crisis problem last night following the tractor protests of this week.
Speaking at the climax of the protest in Dublin yesterday, the Irish Farmers' Association president, Mr John Dillon, distilled the demands of IFA to five principles which he said must be addressed by Government.
Instead of continuing the debate on farm income figures, the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, said farmers were entitled to protest and should address their problems through negotiations in the partnership programme.
Earlier in the day, Mr Dillon had refused to criticise Mr Walsh, saying the Minister had worked very hard to protect Irish farm incomes at EU and World Trade Level.
However, he told the hundreds of farmers who had driven their tractors to Dublin, and their supporters, that farmers could not accept the doubling of the animal disease levies to €20 million.
He demanded that Mr Walsh deliver strong market management to lift milk, beef and grain prices.
He said the IFA would also be seeking a VAT refund to compensate for the rise in VAT to 13.5 per cent.
Mr Dillon also said the Government had to demonstrate its commitment to farming through what he termed "a proper" agri- environmental package .
He said this would have to include a workable agreement on the nitrates directive, a proper Rural Environment Protection Scheme to include 70,000 farmers and a properly funded Farm Waste Management Scheme.
Mr Dillon said a further key point was the introduction of proper procedures and compensation for Special Areas of Conservation and realistic stocking levels for commonage farmers.
Mr Dillon said the farmers, who had driven their tractors from all parts of the State to take part in the protest, had achieved their first objective, to hammer home the message to Government that there was an income crisis in farming.
"While other sectors have moved ahead, farms have been falling further behind. Since the mid-1990s our incomes have hardly risen in money terms. But inflation has eroded our living standards so we are now 13 per cent worse off after the so-called boom years of the Celtic Tiger," he said.
Since 1995 cattle prices had fallen by 22 per cent, milk prices were down by 9 per cent, pig prices by 10 per cent and grain prices by 30 per cent. "These price cuts back to the CAP reform and Agenda 2000 agreements," Mr Dillon said.
He pointed out that the Minister for Agriculture had negotiated these agreements, and the IFA had warned then that Irish farmers would lose out.
Mr Dillon told consumers that they too had been taken for a ride and as the prices being paid to farmers had been cut, consumers still paid more, 38 per cent more for food since the CAP Reform began in 1992.
The IFA president told the farmers that he would be looking at the retail sector in the next round of protests and said the tractor protest was just the first of the year.
He said farmers were getting far too little for their produce and consumers were being charged too much. There was also a serious problem with cheap food imports from outside the EU.
"Those people do not have to produce food to the standards we do and therefore can totally undercut us.
"However, they can use chemicals and other substances which are not allowed in the union," he said.
Mr Dillon said the message from the farmers in Merrion Square was that if partnership was to mean anything, the Government must honour its commitments.
The IFA leader stressed "agriculture still counts in this country". He added: "Our farming and food sector contributes 20 per cent of Ireland's net export earnings - 350,000 people, or 20 per cent of all jobs depend on farming and food."