The meeting was organised by the Concerned Hill Farmer Action group who formed recently to unify the voices of Hill and Commonage farmers on the what they say are the unacceptable terms in the REPS replacement scheme: GLAS.

The meeting saw widespread anger from farmers who criticised the Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney for implementing ‘’unworkable conditions’’ attached to the proposed GLAS and Single Farm Payment schemes going forward. There was also widespread dismissal of the proposal of “collective responsibility”.

Pillar II

National IFA Rural Development vice-chairman Colm O’Donnell said: ‘’There is €580m up for grabs in Pillar II, but already we have been discriminated against as hill farmers, and in the new GLAS scheme there are roadblocks.’’ He told the crowd that on Minister Coveney’s first day four years ago he said it was his priority to protect family farm incomes, especially in vulnerable areas.

O’Donnell said ‘’you are all disadvantaged farmers, you farm hill sheep and produce a product that has no market on the most handicapped land in the country. It is our basic right to get into the scheme; yet the minister chose to prioritise productive farmers.’’

He added: ‘’We are not looking for any favours; we are looking for fairness; if we are active farmers then we should be allowed to enter the scheme as individual farmers.’’

The chairman also added: ‘’We need to make changes to the Minister's proposals that were sent to Europe’’.

MEPs

This was a call that was echoed by MEP’s Marian Harkin, Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan and Matt Carthy who attended the meeting. Marian Harkin said ‘’we can lobby at European level for the changes, but to get changes implemented the message needs to come from our Government.’’

Spokesperson for the organisation, Connacht IFA regional chairman Brendan Joyce said that under the Minister's proposals on GLAS, the group of commonage shareholders will have to come together in a collective agreement prior to applying to enter the scheme, stating “this is impossible and un-acceptable”.

He raised issues with the ‘’discrimination’’ of farmers on marginal land who have to perform a minimal level of activity in the form of a minimum stocking rate which is to be set by each member state. He called on the minister to allow this stocking level to be 0.05LU/ha and to remove the collective agreement which he said the Department are ‘’ramming down our throats’’.

TDs’ attendance

Chairing the event, Councillor Michael Holmes read out apologies from TDs who said they were unable to attend. There was widespread outrage from the floor that none of the four Mayo T.D’s attended the meeting.

They thanked Galway T.D, Sean Kyne for attending and actively supporting Hill and Commonage farmers.

Deputy Kyne said that he had facilitated meetings with the Minister and IFA members on the issue since the issue arose.

He said that the reason the Minister gave for the Collective agreement is that farmers must do something over and above as part of a Pillar II scheme to get approval for it from the EU Commission. He said that collective agreement was reduced down from 80% to 50% as a result of the IFA campaign.

Grassroots

Some IFA members from the floor of the meeting voiced their discontent about the organisation at national level for agreeing to the Minister Coveney’s proposals.

Colm O’Donnell called on all farmers present to come together and support them to lobby the Minister to get him to change the proposals. He also called on the farming organisations to come on board and support them also.

The Irish Farmers Journal understands that the group are awaiting a response from TDs in the coming days. If the collective agreement is not dropped, they are vowing to continue their campaign until the collective agreement is abolished.

Speakers from the floor suggested that the group organise more meetings around the country to gather support and then to protest in unity in Dublin.