The negotiations to bring the farming organisations into a partnership deal ended in failure on Saturday, February 1st last after a very intensive round of talks. The Irish Farmers' Association president, Mr John Dillon, had claimed that the farmers had been "shut out" of the partnership agreement which was essentially a pay deal for the public sector.
Mr Dillon received strong support from the other farming organisations taking part in the farming pillar talks, the rival Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association, Macra na Feirme and ICOS, the umbrella body for the Irish co-operative movement.
The IFA, with its 80,000 members, had submitted an 18-page document to the talks when they began with a list of demands which the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, had claimed would cost €1 billion to satisfy.
These included concessions on the EU Nitrates Directive, which will limit the amount of fertilisers used on land, and major reviews of the Rural Environment Protection Scheme and the regulations covering Special Areas of Compensation. Mr Walsh claimed that the farmers were being offered a deal worth €300 million in the partnership deal in terms of concessions on a wide range of areas.
However, two major issues, a €10 million increase in animal disease eradication levies and a €5 million roll-over tax relief on monies paid for land acquired from landowners for road building, would not be reversed.
These items had become key demands for the IFA which began publicly picketing official events being attended by two Government Ministers, Mr Walsh and Mr Cullen, and three ministers of State, including former IFA president Mr Tom Parlon.
This action began a week ago, but on Thursday last, Mr Noel Treacy, Ministers of State at the Department of Agriculture, signalled at a conference in Kill, Co Kildare, that there were some attempts being made to reconcile the opposing views. IFA sources were reluctant to concede last night that the key issues - animal disease levies and the roll-over tax relief - could not be reversed but also spoke of "the time frame and mechanism" for reversing the cuts.