ANALYSIS: Most of the farmers who took part in the tractor protest are now back on the farms - will their action force concessions? Seán MacConnell reports
Circumstances far beyond Irish farms may well deliver some of the things the men of the IFA who drove to Dublin this week were seeking to achieve.
The farmers may have clogged the roadways of Ireland for a week, but in their own way they kept open the artery for the resumption of the national partnership talks.
Despite the revs they generated outside Government Buildings, the agriculture sectors had not walked away from the process when the trade union movement more or less abandoned it at Christmas.
On last Monday week the sector, including the Irish Farmers' Association, had several hours of discussion at the Department of the Taoiseach when some progress was reported.
The demands being outlined there were the same ones made on the long road to Dublin and there was a commitment to resume the talks again, sometime next week.
The IFA president, Mr John Dillon, defined the priorities of farmers yesterday:
• that the Minister,for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, deliver strong market management to lift milk, beef and grain prices;
• that the disease levies, doubled from €10 million to €20 million in the Budget, be changed;
• the VAT refund be increased to compensate for the rise in VAT to 13.5 per cent;
• a proper agri-environmental package which includes a workable agreement on the nitrates directive, a proper REPS plan and a properly-funded Farm Waste Management Scheme;
• and proper procedures and compensation for SACs and realistic stocking rates for commonage farmers. While some of these needs are beyond the power of the Government, changes may be made in the Finance Bill, which makes the Budget law, to rectify what the farmers see as an attack on their incomes.
There is room for an increase in the VAT refund area to compensate for the rise in the VAT rates to 13.5 per cent, but it may be difficult to reverse the doubling of disease levies.
It should be possible, too, to make "meaningful" changes in the Rural Environment Protection Scheme and Farm Waste Management Schemes, which would satisfy the farmers by higher inputs from the Exchequer in return for more restrictive practices on farms.
It may be harder to reach a workable agreement on the EU nitrates directives because the Commission is very unhappy with Ireland's failure to implement it.
The farmers want the Government to carry out far more studies involving consultation and agreement before Special Areas of Conservation are designated and are seeking increased levels of compensation for commonage land destocking.
These changes, the farmers said, will not cost a great deal of money but would deliver a lot of goodwill and balance the political books.
Throughout the week, the Minister, Mr Walsh, and the Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, Mr Tom Parlon, have been steering the IFA towards the partnership process.
They have insisted that progress can be made only through negotiation, and the farming sector, which stayed in the process when it was abandoned by all others, could well benefit.