FG view on the fall of farming

IN response to Deputy Billy Kelleher’s letter headlined ‘Ploughing jaunt won’t fool the farmers’ (Irish Examiner, September 30), it should be pointed out that Fine Gael, unlike Fianna Fáil, are not embarrassed by our record on agriculture in government.

When we left government in 1997, agriculture was in a much healthier state.

In 1997, when the FG-led Rainbow Government left office, there were 130,000 active farmers. Seven years on, this figure has fallen to 113,000.