This article is from page 42 of the 2008-12-02 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 42 JPG
THE fallout from last weeks CAP Health Check continued to dominate affairs this week with a war of words erupting between Agriculture Minis- ter, Brendan Smith, and the farming organisations.
Following negative comments from the organisation on the results of the EU talks, Minister Smith accused the organisations of misunderstand- ing the results of the Health Check and of spreading “misleading” infor- mation about its results.
Last Thursday, the president of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ As- sociation (ICSA), Malcolm Thomp-
son, challenged Smith’s assertion that Irish farmers are being misled and that they will not lose out from the increase in modulation announced as part of the Health Check.
‘The minister 1s ignoring the fact that money deducted from the Single Farm Payment may not be accessed by farmers so readily.
“Some farmers will certainly lose out, and those who gain will be faced with additional onerous conditions in order to draw down the funding un- der rural development schemes such as REPS,” he said.
Speaking in May EU Commis- sioner Fischer Boel emphasised that one of the main benefits of modula-
tion was that the member states were expected to match the modulated funds euro for euro with exchequer funding.
However, the final outcome of the negotiations was that the 50 per cent matching funding from mem- ber states was reduced to just 25 per cent.
“Worryingly, the minister has made no reference to this in his statements. ICSA is calling on the minister to confirm that this matching excheq- uer funding will be put in place,” said Thompson.
“ICSA welcomes the minister’s success 1n gaining access to unused funds which he has reassured farm-
ers will be worth €23 million per annum from 2010 onwards.
“However, farmers will remain sceptical until the details of how this money will be allocated are out- lined.”
Moving to reassure farmers Min- ister Smith said that Irish farmers would “not lose one cent” from the increase 1n modulation.
“The gain to farmers would come from the access to unused funds in our single farm payment ceilings.
“It was a tough battle in the nego- tiations to get access to these funds and I am very pleased that this was agreed in the final meeting this week,” he said.