Partisan lines were clearly drawn at an MEP meeting in Mallow organised by the IFA.

Fianna Fáil candidate Malcolm Byrne and Fine Gael MEP Deirdre Clune were forced to defend their parties' positions on the CAP budget.

Independent candidate Diarmuid O’Flynn told the 80-strong crowd of farmers at Springfort Hall on Tuesday 30 May that they should look carefully at the history for the two main parties when it came to supporting the CAP at European Parliament level.

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The assertion of any betrayal of farmer interests was strongly rebuked by both Byrne and Clune.

However, Byrne was not above aiming a dig at Fine Gael, stating: “I don’t think Leo Varadkar gets rural Ireland.

“Our towns, villages and rural communities that are having the heart sucked out of them.”

Apology

During the three-hour meeting, one of the standout moments was when Independent MEP and pro-life candidate Theresa Heaney demanded an apology from the IFA for not having been formally invited to speak at the meeting.

In a clearly emotional state, Heaney asserted that the IFA had not given her the respect due to her as an MEP candidate.

Each candidate had been given three minutes to speak, and in the middle of her request for an apology she was told her three minutes had come to an end.

She refused to yield the floor, however, and insisted that the request for an apology was a sidebar, before continuing to give her three-minute address to the floor.

After her speech, IFA president Joe Healy offered her a full apology.

Topics

Despite the sidebars and occasional slurs from the panel, a wide range of subjects was covered, with all 11 MEP candidates at the meeting pledging their support for a €101m Brexit aid package for beef farmers.

Other topics included convergence. Fine Gael candidate Deirdre Clune and Labour candidate Sheila Nunan pledged their full support for the IFA’s policy of “upwards only convergence” in the next CAP.

Unsurprisingly, given the demographic of the audience, all the candidates spoke about the need to rejuvenate rural Ireland.

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