ICMSA negotiating reduced interest loans with non-Irish banks

THE Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) and co-ops are negotiating reduced interest loans with non-Irish banks in the eurozone, the society revealed at its annual conference in Limerick yesterday.

Negotiations with a German commercial bank are at an advanced stage, according to one industry source. ICMSA president Jackie Cahill said Irish farmers are repaying €400 million annual interest payments at 1.5% higher rates than the eurozone average, while some are even paying another 0.5%. He said farmers are no longer capable of supporting that extra cost.

“We trusted the banks for far too long and far too much,” Jackie Cahill told Taoiseach Brian Cowen and other attendees at the conference in the Castletroy Park Hotel yesterday. “Already we see the banks turning against us, their customers; the very people who have rescued them.