Trying to fill very big shoes

The expressions of affection and respect for Pat from the floor were completely heartfelt, but also humbling. His are very big shoes to fill. He brought a calm and a sure ‘feel’ to his handling of issues that was, and is, borne of a great depth of knowledge and an unruffled sense of what is best for farm families. Just as importantly as that sense of what is best for farm families, Pat also has that natural (small p) political appreciation for what is possible in terms of realistic ambition. That is a very underappreciated quality; everyone knows what they want, much fewer know what they can get. Pat did know what was possible to get and how to get it. I’ll do my best to develop that skill, but I’d have to learn fast and deep to ever get to the pitch that he had.

What’s becoming more obvious by the day – if not the minute – is that the context for all the questions and the issues on which we must focus has changed irrevocably. When I first came on to the ICMSA National Council, the overriding question was the price that we received for our milk. Today, that is still critically important, and it will always the first item on any ICMSA agenda, but the question of how much we can produce is catching up very fast. The Government and the swarm of unelected and unaccountable NGOs and ‘activists’ that move relentlessly to limit our production might claim that it is in the interests of sustainability and climate protection – and they might even believe it – but the outcome is what is important, and the outcome is a depression of Ireland’s milk volumes without any corresponding increase in margins to offset that. We are losing through reduced volumes and there is still no meaningful action in terms of improved margins. We have the newly established An Rialálaí Agraibhia – The Agri-Food Regulator – but bitter experience over decades has shown us that the hurl that is waved over the heads of farmers by way of official sanctions changes to a feather duster when it comes to the retail corporations. It’s possible that we’ll see real results from the new office – and it couldn’t possibly be any worse than some of the toothless State agencies that were meant to fill that watchdog role – but ICMSA won’t be holding its breath and instead we’ll be working on those tools that are within our own power and on which we can bring our own efforts to bear.

We do not want to overstate the case, but the process that began under Pat, where we really go in depth into the data and science of environmental and water regulations, will accelerate. We will develop and build on our already significant expertise in these areas to the point where we will know, anticipate – and when it’s legitimate, contradict – flawed assumptions and questionable scientific conclusions. The other side will no longer be permitted to bring ‘reports’ and data to meetings and then present them as unquestionable; we will pore over them with just as much focus and knowledge and where they are wrong or dubious, then we will publicly point to that and demand that the science is brought ‘up to scratch’ and that recommended timelines and implementation periods are observed and monitored.

Those groups and elements whose tactics have been aimed at getting us ‘off balance’ and then piling on the regulations in dizzying sequence are going to find the roles reversed. All those ‘reports’ are going to be interrogated to the best ability we can manage – and we are confident that we can manage quite well.

That is the broader context but, in the meantime, we will focus on the day-to-day problems and challenges besetting our members. And they have never been more numerous or more irritating. The inexplicable and sudden withdrawal of the VAT refund on dairy equipment is just the latest example of the contradiction between official expressions of support for farmers and the reality where every single decision cuts the ground from underneath farmers – and specifically dairy farmers.

One of my last statements as deputy president was to call for a complete redesign and relaunch of TAMS 3 on the grounds that the shambolic rolling-out, unworkable timelines and utterly disconnected costings mean that it is already effectively useless – and seen to be such. And over all this hovers the dark shadow of the threat to our Nitrates Derogation and the Government’s demoralising stance against the kind of obviously questionable assumptions on water quality to which I have already made reference.  

The core mission of ICMSA will never change and that is to act in the interests and for the income of Irish family farms. I am charged with that task, and I’ll give it everything I have. I know you will support me, and I rely on that and on that unity and commitment that is our hallmark.