Hill farmers accuse IFA of ‘a sell out’

THIRTEEN prominent IFA representatives along the western seaboard have accused their organisation at national level of having ‘sold out’ hill and commonage farmers by agreeing to Dept. of Agriculture proposals for the new GLAS environmental scheme.

The revolt against the IFA ‘top brass’ follows a meeting earlier this month in Mayo attended by representatives from every hill branch in that county as well as representatives from Galway and Sligo.

The meeting heard how the IFA at a national level ‘changed their initial position from being totally opposed to a collective agreement on the commonages to the point where they agreed to a 50% collective agreement and a payment of €79/ha on Natura land.

They said that all of this was done without consultation with the Hill and Rural Development committees of the IFA, who had been given a clear mandate to reject any form of a collective agreement.

The statement goes on: “The origins of this mandate goes back to a meeting held on May 20 in Athlone that was attended by hill committee members and prominent IFA representatives from Mayo, Sligo, Galway, Leitrim, Kerry, West Cork, Waterford, Louth and Donegal.

Also present were the IFA president, general secretary, the national hill chairman and rural development secretary.

At this meeting it was made crystal clear that any form of collective agreement would be totally unacceptable as Tier 1 priority entry to the GLAS Scheme. This subsequently became IFA policy.

“The shift in position by the negotiation team on the collective agreement happened when they gave in to Minister Coveney during final talks on the RDP. This was weak and showed a total disrespect for the root and branch protocol that the association trumpets as their strength on the ground.

For more on this see this week’s Connacht Tribune