Blockade Of Meat Plants

Sir, - The anger of farmers on the picket lines outside meat plants last week was strikingly reminiscent of that of nurses last…

Sir, - The anger of farmers on the picket lines outside meat plants last week was strikingly reminiscent of that of nurses last year during their dispute. Here again is a group of people which has had enough of years of unfair treatment. Here again, we see a dispute ignited by one issue, but whose real causes run much deeper. Our nurses, like our farmers, had good reason to protest at their situation last year, but unlike our farmers, they had not been expected to take 25 per cent less pay for their work than was the case in 1995. Had the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, taken the legal route and sought an injunction against the nursing alliance, would the courts have been so swift and so harsh in their treatment of these larger, more powerful unions? Not likely! Our judicial system has moved swiftly and ruthlessly against the Irish Farmers' Association to protect the interests of the beef industry. If the meat price comparisons between this country and our neighbours in Britain and France are correct, it appears that Irish farmers have been cheated for years by our beef barons. Given what we know of the track record of the Irish beef industry, few eyebrows should be raised at this. Yet the courts are prepared to bend over backwards and award injunctions against farmers to an industry which has a most disgraceful record of malfeasance. If our newly prosperous society tolerates the marginalisation and impoverishment of agricultural Ireland, this is not a just society. If our courts support the greed and rapacity of the beef industry, there is no justice. If illegal pricing cartels can apparently be operated for years with impunity, there is no justice. If protests by farmers against their unfair treatment are crushed by draconian legal measures, there is no justice. Our judicial system, both by its inaction and its action, has been used to perpetuate unfairness. It has brought itself into disrepute. It is too much to expect farmers to obey the law, when its administration is so clearly unjust. - Yours, etc.,

Tim Delaney, Gordon Street, Ringsend, Dublin 4.