The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) stance on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform and Brexit will be taken on personally by IFA president Tim Cullinan, the Tipperary farmer has confirmed.
The new president outlined his calls for a CAP budget of €2 billion for Irish farmers and – in the event of Brexit negotiations going south – a compensation package of €1 billion for Irish farmers.
Speaking to attendees at Laois IFA’s annual general meeting (AGM) on Monday night, February 3, Cullinan outlined his plans.
Both CAP and Brexit; I am taking control of both of them myself to ensure that we can put maximum pressure on there in the association.
“I have set targets for the CAP and last week we clearly put a serious message to the leaders of both [Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael] that we’re looking for a budget of €2 billion.
“That’s where we’re starting and that’s where we’re going to stay. We mightn’t achieve it all but by God we’ll give it a hell of a fight.”
Red-line issues
The president also outlined his “red-line” issues for politicians ahead of the General Election this weekend, stressing that live exports must be maintained, while any cuts to livestock numbers because of climate change will not be tolerated. He added that the nitrates derogation is also “absolutely essential”.
Cullinan said that convergence is not the way forward saying it was “taking money from one farmer and giving it to another”; he said lower-income farmers’ payments should be increased through additional funding that’s needed from Brussels.
On schemes he said: “We’re looking for a BEAM [Beef Exceptional Aid Measure] II and we’re looking for €160 million in that scheme.
We’ve a huge opportunity as well on the suckler and sheep sector – we need to turn this around now; this is a massive opportunity to keep the suckler cows and sheep. What we have now is a massive carbon sink in the grassland – still not being recognised by any government.
“There is a massive carbon sink there and that’s why I believe we have a great argument to go back and look for the €300/cow [payment] because by keeping the cow grazing on disadvantaged areas – and keeping the ewe out there, for the €30/ewe [payment], keeping that grass there is a massive carbon sink.”
Brexit, Barnier and €1 billion compensation
Turning to the UK’s departure from the EU, the president said:
“Last Monday morning before the election I had a brief meeting with Michel Barnier and I was getting to know him and I was getting the message out there that we have to get a trade deal for Ireland or for Europe and that’s fine.
“But the concern we have there as well is it depends what kind of trade deal the UK can do. If they end up that they can import cheap meat from Mercosur countries without a tariff on it, then we’re in serious trouble.
“That’s a massive campaign that we’re going to have to drive this year.
“The weight of the association is going to be put behind what’s happening there; I know we can’t directly impact it ourselves but we have to put massive pressure on our Government and the commission to ensure the right thing is done by farmers.
If that deal is going wrong, we have to look for a massive compensation package for farmers here in Ireland.
“We don’t want to be going there but we need to be ‘marking the Government’s card’.
“We actually had it in the manifesto that we brought out before the election; if this goes wrong we want €1 billion – and maybe much more – if things go wrong,” the president warned.