Sinn Féin North West EU Candidate Pádraig Mac Lochlainn hascriticised Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith for capitulating on the issue of increased modulation during the current CAP reform discussions. Cllr Mac Lochlainn reiterated Sinn Féin’s opposition to increasing the amount of modulation on farmers’ payments, noting that in effect the increase amounts to a cut in the Single Farm Payment putting further pressure on farm incomes.
Cllr Mac Lochlainn said “The farming community is still reeling from the array of savage cuts in agriculture contained within the Government’s 2009 budget, and its affects will hit hardest farmers in the west of Ireland. The suspension of the Young Farmers’ Installation Aid programme in tandem with the same fate for the Early Retirement Scheme has been a massive blow to the farming community. Those seeking to enter the farming sector and older farmers wishing to make way for the next generation have both been failed by this budget. In addition cuts to the Disadvantaged Area Aid and Suckler Cow Welfare Schemes will result in almost halving the existing supports to the states most vulnerable low-income farmers.
“Sinn Féin has consistently opposed the increase in modulation and called for more farmers on lower levels of payment to be exempted totally from the measure. We also proposed that that inordinately high payments to non farmers, one of which is over €500,000, be eliminated.
“A report completed by my Dáil colleague Deputy Martin Ferris for the Oireachtas Joint Agriculture Committee, ‘What Needs to be Done to Ensure the Survival of Fishing and Farming in the West’, proves that not only is there a massive disparity in the level of payments but that the majority of farmers on low Single Farm Payment are finding it increasingly difficult to survive, and are increasingly pessimistic about the future. The budget does nothing to redress that. The Government’s cuts have resulted in a 13 per cent cut to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food budget. With the future viability of the sector under further threat Minister Smith cannot afford to get things wrong during the current CAP reform negotiations.”
