The President of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) has described the option of paying to beef finishers only as “hopelessly unfair and not at all consistent with the facts about who had suffered losses”.
Pat McCormack made the comment as demands are growing in relation to the distribution of the €100 million Brexit fund announced by the European Commission in May.
Don't Pick & Choose
McCormack said that it was simply a matter of fact that everyone along the line had taken a hit since 2018 and the distribution of the support package had to recognise that.
“Everyone has been hit and people simply cannot decide to exclude certain categories of farmers because it suits their own personal circumstances or agenda,” he said
“All categories have to be covered – including cows, who actually took the biggest hit”, he added.
The ICMSA President called on the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to publish the document submitted to the Commission requesting and setting out the justification for the aid.
McCormack said that this would ensure “full transparency and clear up any confusion and anxiety amongst categories who might feel attempts are being made to exclude them”.
“It would go beyond logic to exclude farmers from the package whose losses were used to justify the package in the first place and I sincerely hope that our Minister will make a decision that is fair on all categories of farmers,” he concluded.
© 2019 Checkout – your source for the latest Irish retail news. Article by Aidan O’Sullivan. Click sign-up to subscribe to Checkout.
