Mayo IFA receives backing of Mayo County Council amid calls for ‘mass mobilisation’ of farmers

MAYO County Council has lent full support to the Irish Farmers Association as it prepares to mount a campaign, ‘Enough is Enough’ against what was described as ‘out of control’ regulation.

Councillors spoke for over an hour after the IFA accused the ‘EU, the Irish Government and local Government are devising policies far from the farm gate with little or no consideration of the direct impact on farmers’.

In an address to the monthly meeting of Mayo County Council, Mayo IFA Chairman John Lynskey outlined 20 different concerns relating to farming.

Taking aim at EU policy, Mr Lynksey said farmers were not being properly compensated under the Common Agricultural Policy, which he said was ‘reducing farm output’ while funding was being redirected to environmental schemes.

Mr Lynskey also raised concerns over the nitrates derogation - which he said the European Commission was threatening to remove by 2026 - as well as the EU’s controversial proposed Nature Restoration Law and Mercosur trade deal.

Mr Lynksey told councillors there had been ‘a complete systems failure’ in the payment of farm investment grant aid (TAMS) scheme. He also said farmers were experiencing delays in grant payments and claimed many farm schemes were ‘so complicated that agricultural consultants are threatening strike action’.

In his address, he also bemoaned the ‘shambolic management’ of Irish forestry, the prevalence of ash dieback, a lack of dog wardens in Mayo, the Residential Zoned Land Tax and delays in the planning system.

He concluded by asking the council to support a motion acknowledging the costs faced by farmers and their contribution to the economy of rural Ireland.

Councillors were also asked to demand that the government ‘introduce no further regulations on farmers or any measures that may increase costs on farms without full negotiation and agreement with the Irish Farmers Association (IFA)’.

The motion was supported across the council chamber, with Fianna Fáil’s Damien Ryan and Al McDonnell formally proposing and seconding it.

Cllr Ryan supported the points raised by Mr Lynksey and called for a ‘mass mobilisation’ of the IFA against ‘out of control’ regulation.

The council later passed a motion, proposed by Cllr Jarlath Munnelly (Fine Gael), that the council write to Minister for Local Government, Darragh O’Brien, calling for a single customer water charge for farmers.

Uisce Éireann, formerly known as Irish Water, came in for criticism from elected members, with Cllr Ryan describing them as ‘the most dysfunctional public utility ever created’.

Independent councillor Patsy O’Brien said that he knew farmers that were being charged for up to eleven water metres.

Cllr O’Brien said farmers were being ‘let down’ by government at national and European level and claimed the Government were ‘bowing to the officials in Europe’ over agricultural policy.

He also branded as ‘deplorable’ and ‘disgraceful’ the use of CPOs to acquire land for greenways.

Sinn Féin representative Gerry Murray called on farmers not to cooperate with CPOs used to deliver greenways or ‘substandard’ roads.

Forty-four farmers have opposed a preferred route for the extension of the Great Western Greenway from Westport to Murrisk, which may involve the CPO of farmland.

Local councillor Brendan Mulroy called on farmers to become ‘militant’ and said that the CPO of land for the Westport to Murrisk  greenway would be repeated elsewhere.

“If they get their own way on this, as previous councillors said, there will not be a farmer left in this country in 20 years’ time,” he said.

In a ten-minute-long contribution, Cllr John O’Malley pledged to ‘take this fight all the way to the end’ with farmers.

Cllr O’Malley, who is a farmer based in West Mayo, launched an attack on Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan.

The Independent councillor called on the government to ‘get rid of’ Minister Ryan before criticising his recent visit to Brazil for St Patrick’s Day.

“Do you think he’s going to tell them to stop cutting down trees? They’d cut the bloody head of him,” he said.

“He stopped Bord na Móna from producing peat briquettes and we’re importing them by the boatload from Germany and Poland and we’re distributing them around the country, and from Brazil are coming boatloads of wood chips from those trees that they are cutting down so the farmers can have more cattle. They are bringing them into Cork by the boatload and they are trucking them up to the ESB plant to power the ESB plant.”

Cllr O’Malley said that Michael Davitt ‘would turn in his grave’ over land being sold by Coillte to develop forestry.

He claimed that an increase of forestry was leading to an increase in the deer population, which he claimed were spreading tuberculosis to farm animals.

Fine Gael councillors all spoke in favour of the farmers, with Cllrs Tom Connolly and John Cribbin describing farming as ‘the backbone of rural Ireland’.

Independent county councillor Christy Hyland received a round of applause from the IFA members in the public gallery after he said it was ‘sad’ that farmers had to air their concerns in such a manner.

Mr Lynskey thanked the councillors for their show of support following their remarks.