The deputy president of the Irish Farmers' Association, Mr John Dillon, yesterday called for changes in the draft deal hammered out between the Government and the IFA on compensation for landowners whose property is acquired for the national road-building programme.
The call came one day after the agreement was reached. He said the deal had to be renegotiated to ensure farmers who had recently agreed to compulsory purchase orders benefited from it.
However, the IFA's negotiating team, led by its general secretary Mr Michael Berkery and president Mr Tom Parlon, wrote to the 8,000 affected landowners yesterday urging them to accept the deal's terms, which will be effective from December 10th.
The IFA's industrial committee will also meet today and it is expected it will endorse the agreement, which provides for significantly increased payments to landowners whose land is required for national road building, including a co-operation payment of at least £3,900 (€5,000) per acre. A stand-off between farmers and the Government over the price paid under the compulsory purchase order scheme held up the State's National Development Plan and was estimated to have cost £1 million per week.
A spokesman confirmed the deal was not retrospective. "Any farmer who has accepted compensation under the terms of the National Roads Programme will not be covered by this," he said.
Mr Michael Egan, head of corporate affairs at the National Roads Authority, said the "small number" of farmers who had agreed to compulsory purchase orders in recent months were therefore "stuck" with the compensation they got.
He said the NRA received a copy of the deal only yesterday and it would be next week before the board of the authority would be able to meet to decide on whether to ratify it.
He added that, while the deal would have to be discussed, the NRA welcomed the prospect of a resolution to the dispute.
A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said the Department was anxious the deal be accepted so the National Development Plan would not be delayed further.
However, Mr Dillon, who is seeking to be elected as IFA president, said farmers who had already accepted compensation were "coerced" into taking it and should not be excluded from the new deal.
