That most closely guarded secret of rural Ireland, namely how much money each and every farmer makes, is shortly to be blown wide open. The EU is moving to force each member state to publish the names of everyone receiving farm subsidies and the amount of each grant.
In Ireland, as subsidies made up a staggering 94 per cent, on average, of farm incomes last year, we would thus be able to discover the earnings of most of our 130,000 farmers.
Just pause for a moment, though, on that 94 per cent figure. What it means is that market activity in what is supposed to be an economically active sector produced a minuscule 6 per cent of the money earned by farmers last year. The rest, 94 cents out of every euro, was passed directly from the pockets of taxpayers to those of farmers.
While in the past it was mainly the EU taxpayer who carried the Irish farming sector, the burden is now increasing being borne directly by ourselves. Of the stunningly generous €7 billion being given to farmers under the recent partnership deal, two-thirds are now being paid by the Irish taxpayer. This is in addition to the Single Farm Payments received by farmers, which continue to come from the EU.
For a sector which is funded so comprehensively by the State, it is certainly valid to question the confidentiality or even secrecy surrounding the identities of grant recipients and the amounts they receive.
EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel no longer has any doubts on this score. Last July, she announced that "European citizens have a right to know what we are spending their money on". She stated that "member states should be obliged to publish annually - for example, on a website - the list of all those who receive funds". Our own Minister for Agriculture, Mary Coughlan, appears unconvinced, although it is difficult to find out exactly what her attitude is to the openness and transparency advocated by the EU.
To find out what might happen, I asked the Department of Agriculture to provide the names of everyone getting farm subsidies, and how much each receives. Needless to say, I got nowhere. What was interesting, though, was that the department invoked the Data Protection Act, claiming that it prohibits the release of "information directly linking a person with an amount of funding".
This will undoubtedly come as a shock to a number of Government agencies who do just that on a regular basis. There is even a general principle that the public has a right to know what people earn from the State. Doctors who earn money under the General Medical Scheme are listed by name together with income details, as are lawyers working under the free legal aid schemes. The expenses of TDs and local councillors are released under the same principle. Even RTÉ had to finally toe the line over the release of details of the salaries paid to their top earners.
All of these are not, of course, remotely in breach of the Data Protection Act, which confers wide discretion on an agency in terms of what it may release in the public interest.
Another somewhat spurious argument advanced to maintain the secrecy around who gets what in terms of farm subsidies is that to release this kind of information would also mean informing the public of each and every recipient of social welfare payments.
However, in this area we have guidance of great clarity from the Information Commissioner. In a 2001 decision, the then incumbent Kevin Murphy decreed that there was an unequivocal distinction to be made between business income such as farm subsidies, and personal welfare benefits made as a result of someone's private circumstances. Interestingly, this 2001 case dealt directly with the release of names and details of recipients of EU farm payments (headage grants), and the commissioner ruled that the public interest dictated that such information be published.
What makes the Department of Agriculture's attempts to maintain secrecy so ludicrous is that it warns farmers, prominently and in writing, that all information provided in the context of applying for subsidies may be publicly released.
There is also the glaring inconsistency that the department has in the past released details of the highest Irish earners of subsidies, and has even itself argued that it is in the public interest to do so. Thus, for instance, we know that Larry Goodman is top of the list - his company Irish Agriculture Development enjoys the taxpayer's generosity to the tune of over half a million euro a year, or €10,000 a week.
While the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association is opposed to the more general release of information on everyone receiving State grants, the Irish Farmers' Association's position is more ambiguous. They responded to my query somewhat cryptically, saying that "farmers have nothing to hide".
All of which is good news - maybe? It certainly might encourage the Minister for Agriculture to come clean on the issue.