Tipperary farmer leader's beef with Creed over €100m aid package

The country's two main farming associations have criticised the decision to leave dairy farmers out of the €100 million beef aid package agreed between the Government and the EU.

ICMSA again met Minister Creed to stress the association’s conviction that dairy farmers producing beef “must” be included in the share-out of the Brexit beef fund.

The ICMSA president and Tipperary farmer Pat McCormack led a delegation to Agriculture House on Kildare Street this week where – once again – the case for including dairy farmers who had suffered losses on their beef operation was made repeatedly, with the ICMSA delegation pointing out that simple fairness and consistency demanded that all farmers involved in beef production were eligible for a share of the fund.

Mr McCormack has been backed by IFA national dairy chair Tom Phelan who described the decision as "unfair".

Mr McCormack rejected outright any idea that there existed a hierarchy of losses, with the losses suffered by some categories of farmers elevated and prioritised over others.

That was not a feasible basis, he argued, and it would set an unworkable and disruptive precedent that could in the future work very emphatically against those who seemed most in favour of it on this occasion.

Mr McCormack said that it was vital that the impression was not given that policy on matters like this was a matter of manoeuvre or "the angriest voices getting the biggest slice".

“It seems very straightforward to ICMSA that the only workable and fair basis for distribution of the Brexit beef fund is that any farmer who can demonstrate Brexit-related losses should be eligible," he said.

Mr McCormack said that ICMSA was urging the Minister - for the sake of simple logic, fairness and farmer solidarity – to go forward on that basis.

"If we start arbitrarily deciding which category of farmers producing beef is more deserving, then I really think that we’re going down a disruptive road at a time when coherence and consistency is so badly needed," he said.

The people that will come to most regret a share-out plan that excludes dairy farmers - aside from the dairy farmers themselves - will be the Department itself, who will be hounded and have every their decision broken down and second-guessed on the grounds of how it will impact on different categories and sub-groups, said Mr McCormack.

"Everyone will come to regret putting aside equity and fairness as the basis for treating all farmers," he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Phelan said that it was wrong of Minister Creed to exclude prime beef cattle from dairy farmers from the BEAM scheme and it should be changed immediately.

“The IFA president has spoken to the Minister about this and IFA has also lobbied other Cabinet members on the issue,” he said.

Mr Phelan said that he would add that it was it discriminatory, unfair and to the best of his knowledge, unprecedented. Minister Creed must review the scheme so that dairy farmers were treated the same as all other farmers, bearing in mind that farmers involved in other commodities or professions were eligible in the current draft, he said.

“The scheme was meant for the genuine farmers who had lost money producing beef because of Brexit. Dairy farmers producing beef cattle have lost money on these animals during the reference period, and must be included,” Mr Phelan said.

The dairy chair that quite apart from the unfairness displayed by the Minister towards an entire farming sector, he was also concerned that this set a very dangerous precedent that should be avoid at all cost.