Brady to focus on cuts to schemes and TB payments cap
Responding to the annoyance caused by recent cuts to schemes, and lobbying to lift the cap on TB compensation will be on Maurice Brady’s to-do list when he takes up his seat on the IFA national executive.
Maurce is the Ulster/North Leinster regional chairperson elect, having out-polled fellow candidate Kevin Sweeney by 1,229 votes to 707.
“It’s great to get voted in by your peers,” Maurice told the Celt. “I was really delighted to get such a vote, so I’m looking forward to the role.”
He was especially heartened by the turnout at the Cavan hustings on what was a dreadful winter’s night.
“Cavan was massive for me,” he recalls. “My own team did a massive amount of work in just getting people from the branches to turn out. I think there were 145 votes. We were only two or three short of a max - it’s nearly unheard of. So it was brilliant. I’m really thankful to the people in Cavan who turned out in such numbers, it was nearly overwhelming to see so many there.”
He was also grateful to his election team: “They travelled all around the region with me, they did an awful lot of work behind the scenes, they made phone calls and I wouldn’t have had a hope of getting elected without the people I had around me. I really can’t thank them enough.”
Coming to the end of his tenure as Cavan County Chair, Maurice believes the voters were swayed by his experience and long term commitment to the IFA cause.
“Because I’m involved in IFA for so long I was able to put phone calls in to people in every county who I’ve known very well for the last 10, 15 or 20 years. They all gave me a great hand in their own county, so that was a big big help.”
Maurice will take the seat vacated by out-going regional chair Frank Brady at the IFA AGM in January. There he will relate the anger of farmers who have been hit by cuts to schemes for suckler, sheep and calf rearing farmers. Maurice believes Minister Martin Heydon made a massive misstep by reducing the National Sheep Welfare Scheme by €1.50 per ewe; €8 per head on National Beef Welfare Scheme for suckler farmers; and the reduction in numbers on the National Dairy Beef Weighing Scheme.
While the sums for each farmer is “not major money” Maurice reports they are “fuming”.
“Although it comes to €10 million of a direct cut when you add it all up.
“Any other time these schemes were over-subscribed, money always seemed to be found – ACRES was the big example of that one, but money isn’t being found and the minister is shrugging his shoulders saying that’s it, they’re making the cut. It’s went down like a lead balloon all around the region.”
He believes the move has sent out “the wrong message”.
“It’s a trust issue, because farmers would have applied for these schemes in good faith. There’s work to be done and money to be spent to draw down this money - it’s not free money. People did that, and then they found, we’re actually not going to give you what we said we would give you’. IFA will continue with that fight and we might get a stage payment, or we’ll be looking for a payment into next year.”
He will also stress the TB issue, which he notes is “absolutely everywhere”. He is eager for farmers whose livestock are worth more than the cap to be fully compensated.
“There’s quite a lot of people that have had reactors that are worth well in excess of €3000, and again €3000 is the cut off limit. It’s a small amount of money involved to sort that out for those people and again the minister is saying – ‘That’s it, €3000.’ We’re pushing very hard to get that increased.
“It’s not reflecting the price that animals have moved on to.”