The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, has met the EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Franz Fischler, on the level of future financing for four rural development schemes under his control.
Mr Walsh has been seeking increased financing for the Rural Environment Protection Scheme, the Early Retirement Scheme, forestry schemes and headage payments in disadvantaged areas.
All these areas are critical to the reshaping of Irish agriculture in the new millennium, and the EU has laid aside nearly £56 million for the schemes in the 15 member-states.
A statement from Mr Walsh, who is attending a meeting of farm ministers in Brussels, said that significant money would be required from both the EU and the Exchequer to keep the schemes going over the next seven years.
He described the meeting with Mr Fischler as "businesslike and quite frank" and said he had impressed on him the plans he had for operating the measures over the coming years and the major financing difficulties that would arise if the Commission did not take this into account.
He said intensive efforts would continue in order to secure a satisfactory allocation for Ireland.
It was also learned yesterday in Brussels that the United States is pushing forward with its plans to impose 100 per cent tariffs on agricultural produce.
The tariffs, which will come into operation on July 29th, will have a severe impact on £5 million worth of Irish pigmeat exports to the US.
However, negotiations between the EU and the US and Canada will continue on the issue, which began with the banning of hormone-grown beef from the US and Canada in the late 1980s.