MEMBERS of IFA’s National Council and the IFA Rural Development Committee met TDs and Senators in Dublin recently as part of their Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) campaign.

IFA National Lobby Day is the next phase in IFA’s campaign to fight for improved CAP funding.

The EU Council, made up of prime ministers across the EU27, will meet in Dublin next month where An Taoiseach Micheál Martin will chair the meeting.

IFA President Francie Gorman said Ireland currently holds the EU Presidency.

“The Irish Government has characterised their role in the budget talks as being an “honest broker” but we also need them fighting for a strong CAP budget for Irish and European farmers.

We drove this message home to all TDs and Senators,” he said.

IFA signed the CAP Stockholm Declaration in Sweden last week along with other farm leaders from across the EU27.

It calls for a CAP budgets maintained at least at its current level and adjusted for inflation with genuinely ring-fenced funding.

They said the CAP must remain a truly “Common” policy, with its own dedicated and protected budget, if Europe is serious about safeguarding its farming sector and its single market. Mr Gorman said the proposal is to allocate €293bn to the EU CAP budget.

“EU farmers need €500bn to build on-farm resilience, to encourage young people into our sector, to ensure food security and to enhance the sustainability of a very fragile sector. Wherever you farm across the EU: the CAP budget has to be resolved. As things stand, Ireland stands to lose over €2.5bn from our CAP budget, which would mean a cut of 24%.”

“We have our tangible proposals on the table with our senior politicians on how the CAP budget can be increased. We need to see progress on this as well as a provision to ensure current CAP payments are maintained in the event of a transitionary period pending agreements of the next CAP programme advanced by the Irish Presidency,” he said.

“I would encourage all farmers to visit the IFA CAP Hub (www.ifa.ie/cap), inform themselves of the scale of the proposed cuts and engage with their local, national and European political representatives that it’s simple not good enough. More CAP funding is needed.”