IFA president Joe Healy took aim at Sheikh Mohammad, Coolmore Stud, Larry Goodman and “their likes” who are drawing down CAP money, in his AGM speech on Tuesday.

Healy said that the new CAP proposals make strong reference that payments must go to genuine farmers: “CAP direct payments can no longer be used to fund sheikhs and beef barons. They should be used for farmers who are up in the middle of the night to calve cows, lamb ewes and work around the clock to harvest crops.

Listen to "IFA president takes aim at Shiekhs, Coolmore Stud and Larry Goodman." on Spreaker.

“I don’t think the sheikh has much experience on the combine or with the calving jack,” he said.

On convergence of payments, he said that it must be upwards only convergence.

Reducing the payments of other small- and medium-sized farmers who have already suffered huge cuts made no sense, he said.

Meanwhile, in the event of a crash-out Brexit, Healy told the Irish Farmers Journal that farmers would want intervention.

“We’d want the price of meat going into intervention much higher than where it is at the moment.

“[The European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan] mentioned aid to private storage and he also mentioned financial help.

“Those three areas would cover a lot of the problems depending on the figures and the size of the money he’s talking about,” he said.