A £13.3 million EU package to compensate farmers for the fall in cattle prices as a result of the BSE crisis is being administered unfairly, it was claimed in the High Court yesterday.
Mr Hubert Maxwell, a farmer of Ballingate, Castlerea, Co Roscommon, claimed that as an exporter of live cattle he was paid £50 compensation per head for the first 90 cattle and nothing for the remainder.
Mr Eugene Regan, counsel for Mr Maxwell, said his client believed he was being unfairly treated by the Department of Agriculture. If he had sold his cattle to an abattoir rather than for live shipment to a non-EU country he would have received £50 per head compensation on all cattle.
Mr Maxwell applied for leave to seek a judicial review of the scheme set up by the Minister for Agriculture. Mr Justice Smyth said Mr Maxwell had raised very substantial and serious issues.
He directed that before any order was made by the court, Mr Maxwell serve all documentation on the Minister. He adjourned the application until next Monday so that the Minister could be represented. He said any application for adjournment would not be lightly given.
Mr Maxwell said in an affidavit that between March and June last he exported 2,125 steer cattle to non-EU countries and submitted a compensation claim to the Department. He was unaware at the time, nor was he made aware, that there was an upper limit on the number of steer cattle exported outside the EU eligible for compensatory payments.
He applied for the £50 per head on all steer cattle exported by him. He now acknowledged that in the Department's application form there was a reference to a limit of 90 head per farmer. He got £4,500 compensatory payments on 90 animals.
Mr Maxwell said that as was the case with other beef farmers, his farming business was most adversely affected by the new BSE crisis, which followed the House of Commons announcement of a possible link between BSE and CJD.
He had contented himself that having suffered the severe drop in price resulting from the BSE crisis he was entitled to the modest compensatory amount of £50 per head on cattle he had sold between March 25th and June 9th.
He believed that for the Department to grant the compensation payments on all cattle exported by him outside the EU would be in keeping with the objectives of EU regulations. The Department's refusal to grant him the same compensation under the same conditions as other producers was blatant discrimination.