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Minister Michael Creed ponders his next move at the IFA Brexit event held in Goffs this week.
Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan speaks at the IFA's Brexit event, where he heard Brexit is the greatest threat to Irish farming in our lifetime. Picture: Finbarr O'Rourke
The overall perception from the Brexit event on Monday was of how professional the IFA is. A packed house, a who’s who of speakers, with European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan getting top billing. It’s 15 years since Franz Fischler accepted the IFA’s invitation to speak in the same arena about his own decoupling proposals. A lot of farmers loved them – nobody likes Brexit.
The overall perception from the Brexit event on Monday was of how professional the IFA is. A packed house, a who’s who of speakers, with European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan getting top billing.
It’s 15 years since Franz Fischler accepted the IFA’s invitation to speak in the same arena about his own decoupling proposals. A lot of farmers loved them – nobody likes Brexit.
Joe Healy’s love of sport and Galway’s success in the hurling league final last Sunday led to a lorryload of sporting analogies during the day; they got fairly tortured by the end.
Michael Creed credited fellow Corkman Roy Keane with the phrase “fail to prepare, prepare to fail”.
Keane did use those words in his infamous Saipan interview, which led to the most seismic split for Ireland from partition until Brexit. They were actually first said by Benjamin Franklin, who, while useless at football, was one of the founding fathers of the US.
He also invented bifocal glasses, which could come in handy for Minister Creed, who must, according to the conference, ensure a soft border for Irish exports to the UK, and indeed the flow of goods north and south on this island, while at the same time ensuring border controls against third country imports into this country through a post-Brexit UK.
Maybe Roy Keane could maintain a one-man border patrol? Would anyone take any chances?
There was, as there should be, a constant focus on the difficulties a hard Brexit would pose for the border regions.
Fianna Fáil TD James Browne made the point that ferry traffic from Dublin, Cork and Rosslare could be similarly ruined by border controls. A lot of trucks pass through the UK en route to the continent.
One final observation. The age profile of farmers at the event should be a cause of concern. There were very few under 40s in the room, and most of them were not farmers. Where are our decision-makers of the future going to come from?
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