The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) is set to ramp up tractor protests, targeting county council meetings around the country.

This comes just two weeks after the IFA held a nationwide protest in solidarity with their EU counterparts.

The message of the campaign is 'Enough is Enough', with farmers fed up with over-regulation and red tape in their industry.

'Payments mess'

Speaking following a meeting of IFA national council, IFA president Francie Gorman said that he had met with Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue last week on the ACRES payments debacle.

“Following which he agreed to make an interim payment to all farmer participants in ACRES. This goes some way to sorting out the payments mess created by this Department.

“However, there is no doubt that there's huge frustration among farmers on the ground about the way they've been treated by the political system and we've decided that for the next phase of our campaign, we're going to target county council meetings around the country and the message to our politicians is that enough is enough."

Longford protest

Longford is one of the first counties to hold such a protest, with farmers set to gather on Wednesday 14 February.

Longford IFA said that it plans to meet at 4pm on Wednesday in advance of a Longford County Council meeting.

"We will assemble outside Templemichael school at 3pm with tractors and people and drive down to the council chambers arriving before 3.30pm. We hope to engage with the councillors and deliver a clear message on key farming issues," it said.

As well as the actions at council meetings, the IFA has said that county executives are free to have their own actions at local level as part of the ‘Enough is Enough’ campaign and a number of counties are planning other actions.

Farmers are advised to contact their local IFA office or committee members for local protest plans.

The Irish Farmers Journal understands that the campaign is to continue into the coming months around the country ahead of this summer’s local and European elections.