A controversial collective agreement clause in the new GLAS agri-environment scheme has seen hill farmers bring their protests to the door of the Taoiseach’s constituency office in Castlebar.
On Monday, members of a group called Farm Rights staged a protest outside of the Taoiseach’s office where two mountain rams were released during the protest.
Later on in the week a separate group of farmers from the Mayo and Galway region began protesting outside of the office, calling on An Taoiseach to intervene with Minister Simon Coveney and get him to drop the collective agreement clause from the new scheme. The scheme will see farmers get payments of up to €5,000 who carry out specific works. But under the scheme, commonage farmers are required to sign a collective agreement in order to qualify for the payment, with 50 per cent of those using the commonage required to sign up. The sheep farmers want the 50 per cent requirement removed from the deal and allow individual farmers sign up for the scheme like other schemes.
Sinn Féin councillor Rose Conway Walsh said, “Although there are still critical aspects, in particular the 50 per cent collective agreement, to be addressed, I welcome the fact that the Taoiseach and his Minister now appear to be taking the commonage issue seriously. I welcome the movement on the minimum and maximum stocking densities which will now act as a guide rather than a rule. This has only come about because of pressure from farmers and in particular the 1,700 strong crowd that attended the Westport meeting and the protests outside the Taoiseach’s office.
“The practicality of restocking commonages is of particular concern to me. How will stock be kept on these lands with no boundary fencing? Who will oversee the actions to make some commonages viable for grazing? Smaller commonages may wish to fence the boundary or divide commonage to ensure their stock remain there. These farmers should be grant aided under the sheep fencing scheme. There is still no movement on fenced natura/designated land payments in Glas. Still left at €75/HA while commonage has moved to €120/HA.
“It is imperative that the momentum gathered on the commonage issue over recent months continues and that the collaboration between counties most affected along the Western Seaboard is reinforced.”
