The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) this afternoon called on the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Couglan, to veto the World Trade Organisation (WTO) deal on agriculture during a protest outside her Dublin office.
Speaking at a protest outside her Dublin office, Michael Doran, chairman of the IFA National Livestock, said Irish livestock farmers believe they are being sold out by EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson at the WTO negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland.
“Peter Mandelson has inflicted savage cuts on the Irish beef and livestock sector, and Mary Coughlan must come out and tell him that the WTO deal on agriculture is unacceptable to Ireland,” he told the protest, which began at noon.
Mr Doran called on the Tánaiste to use the veto and said it would be too little, too late to withhold it until after Geneva. He said the damage will be done by Mr Mandelson at that stage.
WTO chief Pascal Lamy will today release new drafts today aimed at liberalising trade in agriculture and industrial products after negotiators made ``significant progress'' in bridging differences over the weekend.
“There's been enormous convergence in the last few days and what is on the table is substantial,'' Mr Lamy told delegates in Geneva on the eighth day of a summit aimed at securing a trade deal.
According to Mr Doran, however, the Irish livestock industry will be wiped out as Europe is now offering Brazil 1.8 million tonnes of beef imports. He added that similar concessions in WTO closed down sugar beet growing in Ireland.
“A WTO deal based on the current proposed cuts for beef would decimate the Irish beef and livestock sector. It would demolish our one million head suckler cow herd, and force 50,000 livestock farmers out of business.”
He added that the beef processing sector would be destroyed, with the resultant loss of Ireland's "hard-earned" quality beef markets in the UK and Europe.
Mr Doran said livestock farmers cannot understand why the Ms Coughlan and the Government would want to hand over beef markets to the South Americans.
Fine Gael agriculture spokesman Michael Creed today called for a sitting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee for Agriculture to discuss the WTO talks.
"On June 3rd this year the Taoiseach gave assurances that the Government would veto any unpalatable world trade deal. It now appears that the terms currently being discussed stretch much further than those previously on the table and that agriculture is being sacrificed in order to broker an agreement,” Mr Creed said.
"The Minister must return to the Agriculture Committee and reveal the details of the current proposals. Farmers need assurances that their interests are not being sold out behind closed doors in Geneva."
Negotiators at the talks have reached tentative agreement in areas including tropical products and trade-distorting payments to farmers, and progress in other areas “seems imminent,” Mr Lamy said.
Optimism has grown about the prospects for an accord since governments accepted proposals by Mr Lamy two days ago as the basis for further talks.
Trade ministers returned yesterday to thorny issues in the areas of agriculture and manufactured goods following a one-day shift to service-industry disputes, a priority for wealthy economies such as the United States and nations of the European Union.
WTO talks have moved in fits and starts since starting in November 2001 as industrialised and emerging markets clashed over how open up trade
