Speaking at an ICSA meeting in Letterkenny last Friday, TD for Roscommon-South Leitrim Michael Fitzmaurice didn’t mince his words when giving his views on current EU and Government policy.

The independent TD said there was an unfair distribution of CAP funds for the west of the country and that there was an agenda in Government to protect dairy farmers and cull suckler cows while the national dairy herd expands.

“Men in the west, from Donegal to Clare, are to rear narrow Friesian and Angus calves from the dairy herd on powder milk, and then farmers on good land up the country will finish them,” Fitzmaurice said.

Irish meat factories, British supermarkets and European bureaucrats were all criticised during his address.

He slammed EU legislation requiring farmers to sit pesticide spraying courses.

“There is a cohort of unelected people deciding what goes on in Europe,” Fitzmaurice said.

He said there was “a crossroads coming” in the EU, concluding: “If they try a fiscal union, I will be the first person out of the traps to say: ‘We have got to get out.’”

A tumultuous applause from the 150 farmers gathered drowned out the wedding party next door in the Mount Errigal hotel when he finished.