The adoption of the Nature Restoration Law just days after the European elections “smacks of a deep and corrosive cynicism” and displays “in full” the true attitude of some politicians to farming communities and the rural electorates who will be affected, Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) president Denis Drennan has said.

Drennan claimed that the passing of the law shows that farmers are effectively being used as "voting fodder", suggesting the law was only delayed to keep farmers "onside".

“[The] ICMSA’s concerns on this measure are longstanding and there’s no need to repeat our objections - we have listed them exhaustively on previous occasions," he said.

'Intrusion'

“But we now need to see – and as an emergency – how this intrusion is going to be funded out of new specifically allocated funding and also an official confirmation that no farmer or private landowner will be compelled or ordered to take actions that the State or any external agency decides upon as meeting individual obligations under the Nature Restoration Law.

“Any on-farm actions under the Nature Restoration Law must only be voluntary and at the discretion of the individual farmer," said Drennan.

The ICMSA president added that any degree of compulsion by the State to order individual farmers to carry out actions on their private property would cause massive resentment and would quickly prove to be unworkable.