Farmers who staged a protest in the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht say they were given the cold shoulder.

A group of farmers staged a sit-in at the department’s headquarters, across the road from Agriculture House on Kildare Street, to highlight the fact that pledges of compensation for the losses inflicted by designation of their lands have yet to be honoured. At first, they say, about a dozen civil servants tried to force them out of the building. Gardaí were called, but did not intervene.

As the farmers settled in, they were warned not to take photographs, were denied access to the toilets and not allowed to eat on the premises. Perhaps they would have fared better if they had performed an interpretative dance in the foyer to highlight the plight of designated farmers.