Farmers ready to state their case

The move of the south Mayo area into the Galway West constituency and attracting more young people into farming were among the election topics discussed when Ciara Galvin visited Ballinrobe Mart

John Farragher
Hollymount/Garrymore
(Mayo constituency)
I’m voting in the last polling station in it [Mayo constituency], Lissatava NS. Employment is the one big issue for me, I work off farm as well as farming and the USC charges would be a huge thing for me, if we got that back, it would mean a few euro back in the pay packet for me. I think the higher earners have to pay, I’d only be earning an average industrial wage so the return of the USC would be a great help. I have a young lady in college in Scotland and she has had to go abroad, because of the points system here, I don’t think it’s fair. She worked awful hard in her Leaving Cert and did well and is doing Occupational Therapy, but it’s awful to see your 18 year old heading abroad, having to train in another country. I’ve left her at the bus in Swinford heading to Dublin to fly out to Scotland. She’s not going to come back here working, she’s training out there so I can imagine her waiting out there. Job creation would be big for Mayo and farming to a degree, we’re a dying breed. There’s no incentive for young men to wait on farms. Enda Kenny has taken a lot of criticism, but he is steady, honest, and upfront. He took over a mess, he’s tried his best and turned it around.

Ciaran Golden
Westport
(Mayo constituency)
I think Michael Ring will top the poll this time. He has done a lot for Westport town and a lot for all over Mayo and he has brought money to every part of Mayo. I know friends of mine down around Crossmolina and in the flooding they were in a bad way and Michael Ring kept everything ticking over for them. He’ll be getting my number one.
You’d be hoping that Fine Gael would get in again and that the recovery will carry on and keep going the way it is. The incoming Government will have to try and get better prices for the farmers out there because at the moment farmers just aren’t making money, that’s the long and the short of it. Livestock pricing has to get dearer in the meat industry and milk has to get dearer. Farmers that were milking cows were milking them for half the price they were milking for them this time last year. Some politicians do understand the farmers’ needs but a lot of the politicians hands are tied by Europe and that’s the biggest problem.

Damien McGreal
Achill  
(Mayo constituency)
I think I’ll be voting for Michael Ring, he seems to be the man that has done the most and is delivering the most to the county. He seems to bend over backwards to help people in need, I’d say he’s one of the few that is sure of his seat. I’m not Fianna FΡil or Fine Gael but I feel if Fine Gael don’t get in again we could be in a bit of bother, they have delivered a lot unrecognised, especially for the young farmers, it’s changing the economy. You’re getting a young farmer’s payment, you’re able to then fence land, buy stock, it’s a lot going unrecognised. If the incoming Government could support the young farmer a bit better in terms of getting payments in on time and if the banks were a bit more willing to lend for you for stocking loans, reseeding land it would make it jut a little bit easier to start off.

Sean Joyce
Kilmaine
(Galway West constituency)
We’re in a political limbo … We’re familiar with two candidates [in Galway West], otherwise the rest are city based, bar two in Connemara. But they’ll be looking after the interests of Connemara where one of them was elected previously. The move [of a portion of south Mayo into Galway West] was a hatchet job. One of the candidates, an outgoing TD, will be familiar with our problems and there’s a sitting TD in Connemara, and he will be more or less familiar with our problems, but he wouldn’t be a watchdog for us.
The small farmer is not getting an equal slice of the national cake, and all our entitlements are gradually being eroded. There are very few young people taking up farming because there is no livelihood, you have to have an off farm income to be any kind of a farmer now.

Peadar Higgins
Shrule  
(Galway West constituency)
I’d very much like to see the Government reelected. They have done well enough to get reelected but they’re not getting credit for it. They took over a country with 300,000 jobs lost. The next Government has to keep going the way they are and if there’s money, do more for Mayo. The farming is a bit of a lottery, there isn’t a whole lot governments can do about farming, they can give bits of grants and stuff but they can’t control the market and it’s all down to world markets. The Galway West change was horrible. We have no link with west Galway whatsoever, even if it was east Galway our neighbours would be in Foxhall and Kilconly, Tuam, Dunmore, but certainly not in west Galway. People can’t get their heads around it at all, if they can’t vote for Enda Kenny or Michael Ring they think they can’t vote at all.