Two Irish farm organisations have said the European Court of Auditors (ECA) failed to recognise the importance of direct payments in their recent criticism of CAP proposals.

Representatives from the the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) and the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) made the comments while in Brussels attending debates about CAP 2020. In a recent report, the ECA said it did not consider direct payments as “the most efficient way of supporting viable income”.

Defence

ICSA president Patrick Kent welcomed European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan’s response to the criticism as the Commissioner robustly defended the CAP. Irish MEPs, Mairead McGuinness, Matt Carthy and Luke 'Ming' Flanagan, were also vocal in outlining the importance of direct payments to farmers.

Kent said: “The point is not that there is no room for improvement on the proposals but there is a real concern that the Court of Auditors is going beyond auditing duties and making very political points about the value of direct payments to farmers.”

He said there was a danger some within Europe wished to sideline the original objective of CAP to provide farmers with a fair standard of living. Kent added that the role of the ECA was an auditor, not a policymaker, which is under the remit of the European Commission, Parliament and Council.

Livestock support

IFA livestock chair Angus Woods rubbished the ECA’s claims saying it “completely failed to understand the importance of direct payments to livestock farm incomes”.

Wood said that as things began to “rev-up on CAP”, strong support for direct payments for livestock farmers was required. He described the a proposed €200 payment per suckler cow as essential to the future of the beef and livestock sector.

He also said Commissioner Hogan needed to push for an increased CAP budget to account for inflation and that the Irish Government must back that position also.

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Court of Auditors report critical of direct payments to farmers