Agriculture Minister must spell out what EU meeting on dairy sector achieved

Agriculture  Minister  must spell out what EU meeting on dairy sector achieved

Fine Gael Agriculture Spokesperson, Michael Creed TD,  said the use of unspent CAP funds would not be enough to tackle Ireland’s dairy crisis and the Agriculture Minister must spell out what he actually achieved in his discussions with Commissioner Fischer Boel.

“Minister Smith has previously suggested that unspent CAP funds may be available to save the sheep sector.  Now there’s a suggestion from Europe that they can be used to assist the struggling dairy sector.  The reality is unspent CAP funds aren’t going to be sufficient to deal with the dairy crisis alone, never mind the sheep sector as well.

“The Agriculture Minister’s statements are getting longer and more meaningless by the day.  The latest missive outlines extensively the inner workings of the Minister’s mind on dairy sector supports and concludes that he had a ‘useful’ exchange with Commissioner Fischer Boel.  Since he tells us nothing of what the Commissioner actually said I’m not sure the exchange was useful to anyone besides the Minister.  We need to know what is actually being achieved to aid the ailing dairy sector and the Minister needs to come back from Europe with something more than a stream of consciousness and some vague noises about unspent CAP funds.”