This article is from page 38 of the 2008-10-21 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 38 JPG
BRENDAN Smith record as Minis- ter for Agriculture has been placed under the spotlight in the fall out from last week early budget. With the farming organisations in agree- ment that farmers took the hardest hit of all sectors in the budget, Fine Gael have labelled Minister Smith as ‘the weakest link’ around the cabinet table.
Speaking in the aftermath of Tues- day’s budget, the minister pointed to the €3.2 billion that would be spent on supporting the farming, food, fisheries and forestry next year.
This will be cold comfort to many farmers with overall spending down by 2.6 per cent and payments to dis-
advantaged areas and the suckler cow schemes facing reductions while no new applications would be accepted for the Early Retirement and Young Farmer Installation Schemes.
More worringly, the IFA now be- lieve that there will be a shortfall of €400 million in farm schemes next year.
IFA leader Padraig Walshe said the budget was particularly damaging to the drystock sector and disadvan- taged areas.
Meanwhile, ICSA president Mal- colm Thompson said that there was a sense of shock and horror that farmers were being made to bear the brunt of cutbacks in the Department of Agriculture.
“Minister Smith gave us the im-
pression from his statement that the priority was spending on the produc- tive capacity of the agri-food sector,’ said Mr Thompson. “The reality is that those at the cold face of pro- ductivity, the farmers, were the ones feeling the pain.”
Despite the general negative senti- ment, Clare TD and Minster of State in the Department of Agriculture, Tony Killeen, pointed to a number of positives.
“While there are reductions in the budgets of the Marine Institute, BIM and the SFPA, the seafood process- ing sector, which is recognised by Dr Noel Cawley in his “Steering A New Course Report” as a growth area, has doubled its budget,” he said.
“A further €1.46 million has been
set aside specifically to support com- pliance of fisheries and aquaculture with respect to activities in Natura 2000 sites.
In addition to this €5 million has been made available for aquacul- ture development while funding has been provided to enable the success- ful completion of the current De- commissioning of Fishing Vessels Scheme.
“I welcomed the prospect of the synergies and opportunities that will result from the integration of seafood marketing and promotion with the State’s food marketing body, Bord Bia, while BIM will retain the over- all role in driving the Cawley Report on the development of the Irish sea- food industry,” he said.