The Supreme Court has refused an appeal by a group of dairy farmers who had claimed the Minister for Agriculture was obliged to notify each of them individually of the adoption of the European Council Mulder 2 regulations and of their right to apply for a milk quota under those regulations.
The three-judge court upheld a High Court decision yesterday that there was no obligation on the Minister to give notice of adoption of the regulations to the individual farmers or to any other parties whose claims for a quota under the Mulder 1 regulations had been rejected.
It had been explained to the court that individual dairy quotas in Ireland are based on the volume delivered in 1983. An Irish farmer - save in exceptional cases - who was not in milk production in 1983 could not obtain a quota under the 1984 milk quota regulations as originally adopted.
A Dutch farmer, Mr J. Mulder, instituted proceedings claiming the regulations were invalid insofar as they excluded dairy farmers who were participating in Slom schemes, under which farmers who undertook to withdraw from milk production for five years were paid a premium related to the volume of milk supplied by them immediately before their undertaking during the basis year.
Those proceedings were refer red to the European Court of Justice where Mr Mulder's claim was upheld and the amending regulations introduced as a result became known as the Mulder 1 regulations.
Mr Justice Murphy said 2,500 Irish farmers applied for a quota under the Mulder 1 regulations in 1989 and 1,800 were successful. The rest, including the appellant farmers, were refused because they did not conform to the regulations. The Mulder 1 regulations were appealed to the European Court of Justice, which found aspects of them unjustifiable and invalid. The Mulder 2 regulations were introduced in 1991 to give effect to rulings of the European court in the matter.
The appellant farmers had argued that the Mulder 2 regulations were incomplete and that national procedures had to be adopted before the Community regulations could be truly effective. The State contended the regulations had direct effect and the Minister was under no obligation to adopt any measure by way of legislation or statutory instrument to give effect to them.
The Minister had accepted that, having given publicity to earlier regulations concerning milk quotas, he had an obligation to give publicity to the new regulations and had claimed to have discharged that obligation in full, through publication of advertisements in the newspapers, journals closely associated with farming and direct communications with creameries and co-operatives.
The farmers challenged the adequacy and accuracy of the information in those notices.
Mr Justice Murphy said there was nothing in any of the milk quota regulations obliging the State to give publicity to the making of any regulations by the European Council. It might be desirable that that should be done and the Minister might be correct in assuming an obligation to continue to publicise regulations in the manner which he had.
There was no basis for an obligation to notify individual citizens, however obvious their interests or however desirable that course might appear.
It was also incorrect to argue that the Minister owed a particular responsibility to the farmers because the reasons for refusing their applications under the Mulder 1 regulations were ultimately rejected by the European Court.
Mr Justice Murphy also allowed a cross-appeal by the Minister for Agriculture and the State against that part of the High Court decision which found that a notice published on August 27th, 1991, by the Department of Agriculture, concerning allocation of milk quotas under the Mulder 2 regulations, was misleading and had misled one of the farmers, entitling him to pursue a claim for damages.
The High Court had accepted there should have been an addendum to that advertisement drawing attention to the fact that the new regulations gave rights to milk quotas to persons in similar but not identical situations to those entitled to a milk quota under the earlier regulations. Mr Justice Murphy disagreed with the High Court judge in that regard. He said the advertisement was clear and accurate. The judge said the advertisement published by the Minister in the national, local and technical papers, particularly taken in conjunction with the Minister's communications with creameries and co-operatives on the matter, "fully discharged any obligation which he had assumed".
There was no inaccuracy in the notice and, on a fair reading, the persons to whom it was addressed should not have been misled.
The court made an order dismissing the appeal and, regarding the cross-appeal, discharged that part of the High Court order which held that the advertisement of the Mulder 2 regulations was misleading or gave a named farmer a right to damages.