IFA pledge to continue EC office sit-in over CAP budget
The Irish Farmers Association is pledging to continue its sit-in protest at the offices of the European Commission in Dublin, until EU leaders agree not to impose cuts on CAP payments.
The Common Agricultural Policy budget is just one of the items up for discussion later, when EU leaders meet for an EU Summit in Brussels.
It's proposed that CAP payments could be cut by as much as 200 million euro next year - a move which the IFA says will have a detrimental impact on the agricultural industry in Ireland.
IFA Deputy President, Eddie Downey says a reduction in the budget could also impact on consumers: "There's €1.6bn coming into the country each year from the CAP budget. That's crucially important for the community of rural Ireland.
"We have seven billion people living in the world and Irish farmers produce food to feed 25m of those and we're crucially important from that point of view.
