The Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association (INHFA) has called on the Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue to ensure full convergence and the capping of direct payments at €60,000.

“Seventy-three thousand Irish family farmers have waited for over 20years for a level playing field to be created by our legislators to finally put an end to the grossly unfair historical payment system,” said the president of the INHFA Colm O’Donnell.

“This outdated system is no longer justifiable. The Minister now has the necessary tools to deliver for the majority through 100% convergence,” he claimed.

The comments followed the political agreement by EU agricultural ministers on Monday on the provisional CAP agreement reached last week.

It is not credible to have a situation whereby beneficiaries can offset labour production unit costs

Labour offsetting

Proposed in the agreement was the allowance for farmers to deduct the full salaries of farm workers from their direct payments, essentially raising the payment ceiling to the sum of the farm’s labour costs.

“It is not credible to have a situation whereby beneficiaries can offset labour production unit costs before applying a capping to these huge amounts of money and Minister McConalogue must ensure that this cannot happen,” O’Donnell went on.

“This cohort of commercially viable farmers took to the streets of rural Ireland in recent weeks in a last ditch effort to preserve the status quo and seek to deny the vast majority of Irish farmers from long overdue justice,” he said.