Picket on Taoiseachs office from tomorrow morning

Connemara Farmer · 11-09-2014 5:29pm

I think I can post photos now so....

Self explanatory titles except for "Fadianphoto", Tom Fadian (far right) is the previous IFA Hill Chairman.

Connemara Farmer · 11-09-2014 5:49pm

Will just pick a few interesting ones.

Michael John King celebrated his 87th birthday on the Tuesday before the picket began, and again on the Wednesday of the picket

He was on his feet from 11am until 5pm, never sat down, never took a lunch break.

PicketDay3. A 40 strong bus load of Donegal hill & commonage farmers travel down to Castlebar to support the scheduled picketers.

Luke "Ming" Flanagan MEP joins picketers outside of Enda Kennys office.

Paddy Armstrong 87, with daughter in law and son.

Achill Farmers picketing, including Tom Fadian former IFA HC Chairman.

rangler1 · 11-09-2014 9:35pm

Connemara Farmer wrote: »

Will just pick a few interesting ones.

Michael John King celebrated his 87th birthday on the Tuesday before the picket began, and again on the Wednesday of the picket He was on his feet from 11am until 5pm, never sat down, never took a lunch break.

PicketDay3. A 40 strong bus load of Donegal hill & commonage farmers travel down to Castlebar to support the scheduled picketers.

Luke "Ming" Flanagan MEP joins picketers outside of Enda Kennys office.

Paddy Armstrong 87, with daughter in law and son.

Achill Farmers picketing, including Tom Fadian former IFA HC Chairman.

I think we ventured into the west today, did we come in under the radar, or was there peace declared
or was it that balina......wait
Must've been, it was on Midwestern radio

jjf1974 · 11-09-2014 9:51pm

rangler1 wrote: »

I think we ventured into the west today, did we come in under the radar, or was there peace declared
or was it that balina......wait
Must've been, it was on Midwestern radio

Think you were in Ballina;)

Connemara Farmer · 11-09-2014 9:53pm

rangler1 wrote: »

did we come in under the radar

Was someone looking for ye

rangler1 · 11-09-2014 9:55pm

Connemara Farmer wrote: »

Was someone looking for ye

WEREN'T WE BRAVE:cool:

Connemara Farmer · 11-09-2014 9:58pm

rangler1 wrote: »

WEREN'T WE BRAVE:cool:

No.

Connemara Farmer · 13-09-2014 1:55pm

Day 10 Connemara.

Connemara Farmer · 13-09-2014 6:04pm

Connemara Farmer wrote: »

Day 10 Connemara.

A photo WAS supposed to attach to that post above, so lets try it again...

Day 10 Connemara!

tanko · 13-09-2014 7:00pm

Has Edna made an appearance there yet?

Connemara Farmer · 13-09-2014 7:01pm

tanko wrote: »

Has Edna made an appearance there yet?

Not yet, however we do know it is bothering him

Very simple solution anytime he wants us gone

Bantry meeting Monday night @ 8.30pm.

EU meeting in 11 days time.

Reggie. · 13-09-2014 7:24pm

Connemara Farmer wrote: »

Not yet, however we do know it is bothering him

Very simple solution anytime he wants us gone

Bantry meeting Monday night @ 8.30pm.

EU meeting in 11 days time.

How ya know its getting to him

Connemara Farmer · 13-09-2014 7:41pm

Reggie. wrote: »

How ya know its getting to him

Everyone knows everyone in this country

Reggie. · 13-09-2014 7:55pm

Connemara Farmer wrote: »

Everyone knows everyone in this country

This is true

greysides · 13-09-2014 9:02pm

Connemara Farmer wrote: »

Everyone knows everyone in this country

You know the theory of the Six Degrees of Separation ?

In Ireland, it's probably only 3 or 4.

TITANIUM. · 13-09-2014 10:08pm

Connemara Farmer wrote: »

Not yet, however we do know it is bothering him

Very simple solution anytime he wants us gone

Bantry meeting Monday night @ 8.30pm.

EU meeting in 11 days time.

Fair fcuking play to ye. Spose he thought ye would be gone after a few hours all happy with yerselfs.

Is the bantry meeting exclusively on collective agreements?

Base price · 13-09-2014 10:09pm

greysides wrote: »

You know the theory of the Six Degrees of Separation ?

In Ireland, it's probably only 3 or 4.

Aah but in this case it is a direct hit

Fair play and well done to lads/lassies who are manning the picket on a daily basis.
I think disillusioned beef farmers need to take a lesson from them.

Connemara Farmer · 14-09-2014 7:15am

TITANIUM. wrote: »

Fair fcuking play to ye. Spose he thought ye would be gone after a few hours all happy with yerselfs.

Is the bantry meeting exclusively on collective agreements?

The collective agreement will be the headline issue I'd imagine. Another issue is zero hill/commonage farmer representation on the implementation committee. We saw historically that solutions cannot be dictated on commonages by people who only do desktop exercises without meaningful and substantive consultation of the people who farm that land.

A lot more came up at the westport meeting because people have different views and problems, it will be well worth going to as you will be told the straight facts of what's going on, particularly the implications of what the Department is insisting on. It's never a bad idea to have the full picture.

Connemara Farmer · 14-09-2014 7:26am

Forgot to mention the man far left of the photo above stood for election for FG once upon a time.

rangler1 · 14-09-2014 8:25am

Base price wrote: »

Aah but in this case it is a direct hit
Fair play and well done to lads/lassies who are manning the picket on a daily basis.
I think disillusioned beef farmers need to take a lesson from them.

That's not going to happen,

Reggie. · 14-09-2014 9:28am

rangler1 wrote: »

That's not going to happen,

Cheers for the vote of confidence

Connemara Farmer · 15-09-2014 5:20pm

There was a fellow boardsie at the picket today

Me thinking they were for a different part of the country altogether :pac:

Wooly Admirer · 15-09-2014 9:04pm

70 people in Bantry. No Ming!

Connemara Farmer · 15-09-2014 9:22pm

Wooly Admirer wrote: »

70 people in Bantry. No Ming!

Yeah, apparently so, that's very disappointing.

My understanding re Ming was he had accepted invite but conditionally as his wife was near due date, events must have become urgent in that department which is fair enough.

Reggie. · 15-09-2014 9:36pm

Connemara Farmer wrote: »

Yeah, apparently so, that's very disappointing.

My understanding re Ming was he had accepted invite but conditionally as his wife was near due date, events must have become urgent in that department which is fair enough.

Some things take presidence

Connemara Farmer · 16-09-2014 6:57am

Reggie. wrote: »

Some things take presidence

Now you hit the nail on the head.

Connemara Farmer · 16-09-2014 6:58am

http://www.yourcommonage.ie/2014/09/commonage-crisis.html?m=1

Above is the website of a group of agricultural planners who have written articles on this for the guts of the last two years anyway if not longer.

Wooly Admirer · 16-09-2014 8:55pm

The meeting in Bantry last night was not good. The meeting was due to start at 8.30, didn't start until after 9.30. They had over 300 seats lined out, and at 9.30 they stacked 200 of them and took them away.

Eamon O'Cuiv was the main public rep, also present, Michael Healy-Rae, a FG lad, and a representative of a local councilor. B.Joyce and C.O'Donnell spoke very well. O'Cuiv spoke pretty well too, he's obviously done his homework. Having the others there to speak was a complete joke! Half the night listening to a party political broadcast from each of them.

Apart from that it was just an IFA bashing session. Anti IFA lads exchanging views with the pro IFA lads in the room. Very few ideas being put forward, just moaning.

2013 Teagasc profit monitor: Net profit per hill ewe was MINUS €5 per ewe. Not a mention about this!

Connemara Farmer · 16-09-2014 9:33pm

Wooly Admirer wrote: »

The meeting in Bantry last night was not good. The meeting was due to start at 8.30, didn't start until after 9.30. They had over 300 seats lined out, and at 9.30 they stacked 200 of them and took them away.

Eamon O'Cuiv was the main public rep, also present, Michael Healy-Rae, a FG lad, and a representative of a local councilor. B.Joyce and C.O'Donnell spoke very well. O'Cuiv spoke pretty well too, he's obviously done his homework. Having the others there to speak was a complete joke! Half the night listening to a party political broadcast from each of them.

Apart from that it was just an IFA bashing session. Anti IFA lads exchanging views with the pro IFA lads in the room. Very few ideas being put forward, just moaning.

2013 Teagasc profit monitor: Net profit per hill ewe was MINUS €5 per ewe. Not a mention about this!

It's not for me to comment on the content of a meeting I didn't attend. We organised the very successful meeting in Westport, and obviously had our speakers at it. Following on from that Donegal farmers organised a very successful meeting where we sent speakers to. Obviously something has gone wrong with the organisation for the Bantry meeting. As far as I know ads were taken out in local papers, radio slots, and people spoke at local marts. We did our part with Brendan and Colm going down.

However it's not for farmers from Connemara, Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim, Donegal to organise a meeting in West Cork, nor vice versa. That's just not possible, we're not an official association with the contacts and financial support that gives. The only wage from this is lots of time spent on the road and on phones away from our families and our own farms.

I would say politicians are important in this, it's important they're informed and pressured, and kept pressured. Certainly it's a different vista seeing 1700 people vs 70 people but thems the breaks and life doesn't always run smoothly.

As I said previously the two main objectives of the group are to get rid of the collective agreement entry criteria in GLAS and also the min/max link to SFP (the latter has been changed). So, while we all recognise the difficulties in hill farming, inc Teagasc figures, they would not I would have thought fallen into the main points of any of the three meetings. But they certainly are another good reason as to why hill and commonage farmers should not be discriminated against.

flutered · 16-09-2014 10:04pm

lads, be very very wary of politicians, they have a mighty track record of shafting, in order to get their way.

Connemara Farmer · 16-09-2014 10:05pm

flutered wrote: »

lads, be very very wary of politicians, they have a mighty track record of shafting, in order to get their way.

Very true, being quite pragmatic about them to be honest

Picket on Taoiseachs office from tomorrow morning

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