Farmers unhappy at social partnership gap
However, the farm lobby says that the gap is even greater, with IFA President John Dillon rejecting Agriculture Minister Joe Walsh's valuation of the Government's offer at up to €300 million.
"Having regard to everything concerned, a set of proposals costing an estimated €300m was reasonable, taking budgetary consideration into account," said Minister Walsh in the Dáil.
"The difficulty is that the farming interests had a set of requests which would cost in excess of €1 billion," he said, in a reply to Fine Gael agriculture spokesman Billy Timmins, TD.
Instead of moving closer, farmers and Government last week seemed to be returning to the level of enmity seen during the "tractorcade" protest.
IFA has now embarked on a campaign of targeting five named Government Ministers for protest action over farm incomes at public functions around the country.
"The Government's attitude is clearly to push farmers out of partnership, cut farm spending and direct resources to other sectors, particularly the soaring public sector pay bill," said John Dillon.
He accused the Minister of distorting facts during the IFA tractor protest, and again during the partnership negotiations.
ICMSA president Pat O'Rourke has accused Minister Walsh of misleading farmers and the general public on the partnership negotiations.
He said the Minister's assessment of €300 million of benefits on offer to the farming sector was completely without foundation, because throughout negotiations, the Government side had refused to make specific commitments on funding.
Mr O'Rourke said he was putting the last draft of the document presented by the Government to the farming pillar on its www.icmsa.ie website, so that farmers and the general public can judge for themselves.
