The decision by the Government to allocate only €15 million for dairy projects to the North and West and €100 million for projects in the South and East was clear evidence of the continued discrimination by the Government in the allocation of national resources.
This was stated by Independent MEP Marian Harkin when she strongly criticised the way in which the Dairy Investment Fund had been allocated.
The attempt of the Minister and Department of Agriculture to explain the refusal to support the joint Cheddar Cheese project proposed by processors in the North & West was exposed as blatant discrimination when substantial funding was provided for Cheddar Cheese developments in the South and the East, she said.
In her attempt to raise the issue in the Dail today, Thursday, April 26th, Deputy Harkin accused the Minister for Agriculture, of acting in total contradiction of the policy of successive Governments to encourage joint projects and rationalisation in the Dairy Industry. “The Minister for Agriculture has indicated that she was acting on the advice of Enterprise Ireland in refusing to support a project which was geared to benefiting dairy farmers in eight disadvantaged counties but instead directed €100 million to the substantially advantaged dairy industry and farmers of Munster and Leinster, she said.
“The derisory €15 million for the area north of the Dublin Galway line further emphasises the failure of the Government to deliver balanced regional development and the omens are very bad for the North and West for the future when we see how this combination of Government and Enterprise Ireland has failed the most important indigenous industry in the region”, Marian Harkin said.
It was utterly depressing that a Government policy since the 1950s to rationalise the Dairy Industry in the North and West had been abandoned when a significant attempt to deliver on that policy was thrown back in the face of the promoters who represented the dairy farmers of eight counties in the North and East, Marian Harkin said.
