Farmers ‘shivering in their shoes’ over inspections

Farmers in South and East Galway are “shivering in their shoes” because of unannounced farm inspections, local IFA representative Michael Silke told The Clare Champion.
Senator Lorraine Higgins raised the issue in the Seanad recently, calling for an immediate end to what she described as “questionable farm inspections” in East Galway, which are creating a “reign of terror” amongst the farming community there.
“Throughout East Galway in particular a practice exists whereby inspectors are arriving on farms to conduct inspection without giving any prior notice to the farmer in question,” said Senator Higgins.
“In the ordinary way, this renders their arrival on the farms illegal but these inspectors are arriving under the guise of the Animal Feed and Hygiene Regulations, where no notice period is required under EU Law. However, they are then purporting to carry out tagging inspections on cattle and sheep where 48-hours notice should be given by law and further inspections on land eligibility where up to 14 days notice should be given.”
Senator Higgins claimed farmers in the area now “dread” department inspections. 
“Right now, the farmers of East Galway dread to hear of department inspections.
“There is a huge element of fear right throughout the community and very often farmers are afraid to stand up for their rights for fear of any detrimental action being taken against them.
“This is wrong and it is an unacceptable reign of terror on the farming community. Therefore, I want the minister to outline what steps he will take to alleviate this totally unacceptable situation.”
According to Michael Silke of the Irish Farmers Association, “there is no question but this inspection regime is a nightmare for farmers”.
“A number of years ago, farmers had a charter of rights, which these inspectors abided by but it would appear now we do not have this charter of rights and inspectors can come onto your farm whenever they desire and inspect your farm.
“They can come onto the farm without notice for to inspect for animal identify and feed stuffs and animal welfare but you are supposed to get notice for everything else. It would appear they have an open forum now to inspect farms as they desire and that is very worrying.
“We had a charter of rights and tolerance levels and they don’t appear to be adhered to at the moment.
“With regard to tags, cattle lose their tags, especially when feeding. We were allowed have a 3% tolerance level in terms of tags, so a farmer could have three animals without tags out of 100. Now there doesn’t seem to be any tolerance level and that is very worrying,” he said.
The mood among farmers in relation to the current inspection regime is one of anger he says.
“Farmers are shivering in their shoes, they are so afraid of inspections. The atmosphere on the ground is very angry. In this region as well you have a situation in relation to turf cutting. Over the last number of weeks we had helicopters and planes flying over looking at those bogs to make sure they are not being cut.
“This is all heavy-handed stuff. We need to go back to reality. People elected this Government and they didn’t elect them to crucify themselves. Farmers are worried that when you have an inspection you will almost always get a penalty.
“While the past year has been ok for cattle, it is coming up from a very low base. Only recently we saw a dramatic drop in sheep prices and we have seen a significant drop in milk prices in the last few weeks.
“Prices are drifting back to 2009 levels. All we need is a blow to cattle on top of that. With these inspections on top of everything, we just can’t take any more of it,” Mr Silke concluded.