Walsh under pressure to give farmers weather compo

THE farm and political lobbies yesterday increased the pressure on Agriculture Minister Joe Walsh to deliver a financial package to help farmers under pressure because of the wet weather.

However, a spokesman for the minister, who has already announced a number of measures to help farmers in difficulty, reiterated that there is no specific financial package available to deal with the weather conditions.

Fine Gael agriculture spokesman Deputy Billy Timmins, who called on Mr Walsh to bring a targeted plan to Government to assist the agriculture industry “which is facing into its worse crisis in years”, said there is an unprecedented despondency among farming communities following the severe weather and the uncertainty over the Common Agriculture Policy.