Fischler outlaws cull ewe scheme

By Des Maguire and John Dardis

EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler has written to the Minister for Foreign Affairs David Andrews confirming that the Commission intends to initiate infringement proceedings against Ireland for breaches of the Treaty of Rome on a number of national aids given to cattle, sheep and small dairy farmer by his colleague Joe Walshe. These totalled over £20 million.

In a letter sent to Minister Andrews within the last fortnight Franz Fischler says that the Commission believes that the cull ewe scheme which removed around 100,000 cull mountain ewes from western commonages last November and December is illegal and that the £1 million subsidy given by the Department to twelve lamb plants to cover the slaughter of the ewes should be recovered from them.

The Commissioner has also told the Minister that he considers payments made to thousands of farmers in the Disadvantaged Areas under the £20 million fodder aid package announced last February as being incompatible with EU law on the common organisation of the market because they were national aids in many cases rather than compensation for fodder losses.

He also maintains that the Special Fodder Hardship Fund operated through Teagasc is in breach of the Treaty of Rome.

He has called on the Government to provide additional information to justify the £20 million pay-out and has warned that if the Commission is not satisfied, all aids found to be incompatible with the common market will have to be recovered from the recipients along with the appropriate interest.

The Commission has also told the Government separately from Franz Fischler's letter that the £1 million subsidy given by the State to finance the start-up of the Purbeck live cattle shipping service two years ago is deemed to be an illegal national aid and should be recovered from Gaelic Ferries.

Mr. Fischler's letter to the Minister for Foreign Affairs is a follow-up to the preliminary opinion issued by his civil servants earlier this year which was published in the Journal in our issue of July 17. It is being regarded as a more serious intervention than the preliminary opinion.

The Commissioner is particularly scathing of the cull ewe scheme in his letter and says the Commission clearly considered the subsidy given to the lamb plants to be a national aid. The scheme did not benefit the slaughter houses as they had to kill, process and handle the animals. "The measure was intended to benefit the producers of ewes. By virtue of the measure sheep which otherwise did not have a sufficient commercial value could be put to the market at competitive prices," the letter states.

The Minister for Agriculture Joe Walshe said this week that the Government intended to defend the pay-out of last February's fodder aid package and the cull ewe scheme in the strongest possible manner.

"Those measures were not introduced lightly but were decided on because of the particular hardships prevailing at the time," the Minister said.