The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has said that Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue signed off on changes to scheme payment dates as far back as February.
According to the association, this fact was made known to farming organisations at the most recent meeting of the Farmers’ Charter.
Pat McCormack, the ICMSA president, said he was “shocked” by the revelation, criticising what he called a “charade of consultation”.
Last month, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine wrote to farmers to confirm new payment dates, after originally informing farm organisations of its plan to do so at a Farmers’ Charter meeting earlier in March.
But according to the ICMSA, Minister McConalogue had already signed off on the changes the previous month.
The department informed farmers that payments under the Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC) Scheme will be pushed back by a month to October 17, while the payment for the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) – which replaces the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) – will be made from October 24.
Speaking this morning (Friday, April 14), McCormack said: “Not alone did [the department] not inform the farm organisations at the meeting in early March that this was the case, but instead continued with a charade that this was still part of negotiations.”
He added: “The tactic was cheap and unworthy and it [would have been] preferable… to dispense with the notion of consultation altogether than to continue with this charade.
“Farmers are still no wiser as to why the department has changed the payment dates that it must have known are critical for farmer payment schedules.
McConalogue called on the minister to make a statement setting out his reasoning for the changes and the sequence of events that led up to his signing off on the new payment dates.
“[We have] always tried to show proper respect and act in good faith. That’s why we think we are entitled to ask for the same in return, for ourselves and for all farmers. That has categorically not been the case on this issue,” McCormack said.
“We have been treated very shabbily and, bluntly, unless the minister has some valid reasoning that he can explain, then we think it would be better to just abandon the Farmers’ Charter than allow it to continue in this devalued state.
“The process needs to have its credibility restored and the only person that can do that is the person who destroyed its credibility,” McCormack remarked, in reference to Minister McConalogue.