EU subsidies need to be divided up better, according to Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, who compared the situation to ‘the fat kid at the party eating all the cake’.
Speaking at a recent meeting of the ‘old’ young farmers in Athlone, the MEP asked: “What’s wrong with taking the money from another farmer?”
According to Ming, farmers ‘who are not even farmers’ are getting tens of thousands of euro, yet others are receiving very little.
“It’s fairly simple if there’s one fat kid at a party and he’s eating all the cake there’s going to be none for anyone else.”
And he said the only way change would come about is when there is an organisation that is serious about spreading this money around.
“Taking it off that fat kid and spreading the cake around.”
He said that big farming organisations fought proposals in Europe to take money away from the Larry Goodmans of the would and give the money to small farmers.
“What happened it was fought against by the big farming organisations and it was sold then as ‘we got a few more quid for ya and the big farmers lost a few quid.’
“It was a pittance the shift that took place.”
He said that the Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney claims to be able to do anything he wants in Europe, when it suits him, and he has the power to change something that actually would benefit farmers in Ireland.
“If he went for the system that Ciolos was suggesting, giving E250/ha, we would have this at the moment.
“But Simon Coveney will now tell you that it will be difficult to change this and difficult get another category, even though he managed to change what they didn’t want to do in Europe.”