All parties to blame for debt crisis, say farmers

FARMERS believe the current national economic crisis is the result of “a complete national failure”, according to a survey conducted for the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA).

Field work on the survey of 308 ICMSA members countrywide was conducted over the telephone by the market research company Behaviour and Attitudes between September 9 and 12.

The findings show the majority of participants (69%) believe all parties are responsible for the crisis. These include politicians, senior public servants, financial institutions, developers and others.

But the farmers place most blame on the banking and financial community (21%) and politicians and public representatives (19%) with developers and builders being blamed by a mere 7%.

The findings, published as thousands of people attend the national ploughing championships in Athy, Co Kildare, also reveal that most farmers (54%) believe it will take six or more years before the economy recovers.

Just 9% predicted there might be a recovery in three years with one in three (29%) saying it might be within the next four or five years.

A whopping 70% of those questioned indicated they would vote against the EU having greater power over national budgets and taxation policies.

ICMSA president Jackie Cahill said the finding that the crisis is to be attributed to “a complete national failure” is a damning verdict on the performance of some of the best paid politicians, civil servants and quangocrats to be found anywhere on the planet.

“The farmers surveyed have identified a complete system failure on the part of several previously esteemed institutions and I do not doubt, for one minute, that any other sector of our society would differ greatly from the verdict pronounced by the farmer respondents.

“It is very striking how few (7%) attribute the blame to ‘developers/ builders’; it’s as if the farmers refuse to be ‘fobbed-off’ with a scapegoat and are insisting that the rot was much deeper than a few high profile crash-and-burn builders,” he said.

Mr Cahill said the attitude of the surveyed farmers to the EU is a serious wake-up for Irish Governments.

“It tells anyone who wants to hear that the Irish public has been scarred badly by their experience of the last three years and they’re placing some of the blame at the door of the EU.”

Mr Cahill said only 26% of farmers surveyed declared a positive attitude towards the EU while 38% felt ‘less positive’ or described the EU as having seriously declined in their estimation.

The EU’s less than convincing swings between punishment of the peripheral states and endless prevarication have done a previously admired institution very considerable damage.

“This growing negative sentiment is crystallising around the question that asks whether the farmers surveyed would approve or disapprove of giving the EU greater powers over our national budgets. Nearly two thirds (64%) were against that proposal,” said Mr Cahill.

“And it becomes even starker when asked what way they would vote in any such referendum: 70% said they would vote against any such move — and this from a sector traditionally seen as the most pro-EU constituency in the state,” he said.