"Tell the Irish farmers that we are all in the same boat. Their prices aren't sparkling by any means, now are they? . . . Hopefully this one big crisis will give us all, Irish, Welsh and Scottish farmers, a decent standard of living," said Mr H.S. Davies, a farmer from Anglesey taking part in a 24-hour picket at the port of Holyhead.
Mr Davies said he wanted to apologise to Irish farmers. "We are between a rock and a hard place. When people are in a corner they will react . . By doing this the Irish Parliament is going to help us by pressing [the British] parliament, Brussels and I hope go as far as the European Courts . . ."
Standing nearby were at least 50 other farmers from Anglesey and Carmarthenshire who have volunteered to maintain the picket as part of the escalating protests against Irish meat imports.
Until yesterday one of the more curious facts of this protest was that while the Welsh farmers were busy working on their farms during the day, Irish trucks carrying meat products were passing through Holyhead unhindered, meeting the blockade only when they arrived on ferries from Dublin and Dun Laoghaire in the early hours of the morning.
"That has stopped now and we won't be letting anything through," said one farmer.
The farmers are a well-organised group of men and women. Their plan is that each day, "for as long as it takes" a group of about 50 will take a six-hour shift on the picket and elect from their group five official representatives to work with the port authorities and check the paper work of each lorry coming off the ferry.
"The port authorities are co-operating and allowing us access to the trucks . . .I have been on board the lorries and inspected them. It is for their benefit because it is keeping 80 per cent of the traffic moving," Mr Davies said.
The Farmers' Union of Wales and the National Farmers' Union will meet the Welsh Secretary, Mr Ron Davies, for negotiations about the dispute later today but in the meantime the picket continues.