NINE Irish farmers have lost their challenge to EU milk, quota rules in the European. Court of Justice.
The Luxembourg court, ruling on Thursday in response to questions put by the Irish Supreme Court, said that the Department of Agriculture was not under any obligation to give special increases in milk quotas to farmers with approved development plans.
The case returns to the Supreme Court for its ruling on the substantive issue but, legal sources suggest, the farmers are most unlikely to succeed.
When the plaintiffs obtained, milk quotas in 1984, at the time of the introduction of the superlevy scheme, these had 1983 awarded on the basis of output figures. But the plaintiffs had already notified the Department of plans to develop farm capacity and the plans had been approved. The plaintiffs had subsequently invested heavily in doing so.
Their production then substantially overshot their quotas and was subject to superlevy charges.
The plaintiffs contended that an EU regulation which gave the authorities the right to take such plans into account when setting quotas actually required them to do so. The court found that the state had the option not to increase the quotas.
The plaintiffs were Mr Fintan Duff, Mr Liam Finlay, Mr Thomas Julian, Mr James Lyons, Ms Catherine Moloney, Mr Michael McCarthy, Mr Patrick McCarthy, Mr James O'Regan and Mr Patrick O'Donovan.
