Published: Thursday, 10th December, 2009 2:00pm

Smith fights back at ICMSA AGM

The ICMSA says it has again established itself as capable of attracting high calibre speakers and putting them in a situation where they have to defend their opinions before hundreds of opinionated, knowledgeable farmers.

The association's spokesman was referring to its AGM at the Carlton Castletroy Park Hotel in Limerick, which featured Minister Brendan Smith, economist Colm McCarthy, Joe Meade, the Financial Services Ombudsman and Gerry McGuire, RTE Radio's regional editor.

Optimistic

Minister Smith told the farmers he was "optimistic and positive about the future of the industry, notwithstanding the serious difficulties it faced this year. I'm confident about its potential to contribute to the recovery of the economy

The government recognises that potential and I want to work with the industry and all those who are involved, from the primary producer through the chain to ensure that the sector reaches its potential and maximises the contribution that it can make to the growth and development of the economy nationally and, equally importantly, to so many local economies and communities throughout the length and breadth of this country."

The ICMSA president Jackie Cahill gave a fiery speech in which he pointed out that the present weakness of sterling against the euro was destroying the export trade to the UK, Ireland's biggest market. Why was no attention focused on that?, he asked.

"The loudest voice in deciding our strategy is the public sector. And the public sector is by and large completely insulated from anti-export currency movements. It only seems to matter to them insofar as it provides cheap shopping in Newry on their strike days," he said.

Mr. Cahill demanded that the Department of Agriculture start to walk the walk on reducing costs and this had to mean much more use of lay-testers in disease eradication and meat inspection; lay-testers were widely used in the UK and it hadn't caused chaos there, he maintained.

"It's time to end the featherbedding of certain professions. Nobody's owed a living. We certainly aren't and I don't see why vets should be any different." Turning to the recent flooding, Mr. Cahill was scathing of what he called the "curse of multiple agencies where everyone has a nice office and a nice budget and a healthy staff roll but no-one has any responsibility". Continuing with that line of attack, he said that "the reason we had floods was too much rain. But the reason why we had catastrophic damage was too many agencies and quangos with no practical ideas".

The ICMSA would always speak up for dairy farmers, its president told the packed room and he said he would go down on bended knees to give thanks as Commissioner Fischer Boel left office.

"Her policy of expanding production just at the time the world price turned will go down as one of the most stupid decisions the EU ever took on agriculture. "And there's stiff competition for that prize. The idea that farmers could make up for the collapse in milk price by producing more milk and selling it into a market where the price was still falling was the equivalent of telling a man at the bottom of a deep hole that he should keep digging to find his way out. It made a terrible situation worse."

Mr. Cahill said ICMSA had been proved completely right in opposing the expansion of quota production but it had been a lonely fight.

Minister Smith was the last speaker, and he defended the record of the government on agriculture against a wave of attacks from speakers infuriated by its record on REPS and the other axed schemes.

He was in combative and highly effective debating form as he took on allcomers and won grudging respect when he told the hundreds of farmers present that "they couldn't have it both ways".

"The Department of Agriculture is always being told by farmers to cut its costs but when we're implementing restructuring and closing our offices, every secretary of every county organisation of all the farm organisations writes to me to complain about that," stated the Minister, who missed an interview with RTE's Damien O'Reilly through the pressure and numbers of farmers demanding answers about perceived shortcomings in government dairy policy.

A large Cavan delegation travelled south, with ICMSA members from Monaghan, Longford and Meath, and said they were happy with the content and tone of the AGM.

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