The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has called for farm inspections to be suspended for at least a week as the country recovers from the aftermath of damage during Storm Éowyn.
Deputy president of the ICMSA Eamon Carroll has said that it would be “unfair and harsh to inspect and judge farms” in the immediate aftermath of a storm, which hit the country on Friday (January 24).
The storm put the whole country under a Status Red weather warning, with damage caused nationwide, and 228,000 homes, farms and businesses still without power.
Around 100,000 ESB customers will not have power restored until past next Friday (January 31), and there are approximately 84,000 premises without water, and a further 100,000 are at risk.
With calving and lambing underway, Carroll said that farmers “would be stressed and anxious enough” at the moment.
The ICMSA has called for an official announcement from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) and other relevant inspecting bodies on a suspension of inspections for the next week, with allowances to be made after that.
ICMSA
“There’s great deal of stress and anxiety out there in areas of the country now and we should be trying to alleviate that and give the affected farmers a few days to see where they are and what needs to be done first,” Carroll said.
“We think that Minister Heydon would welcome this first opportunity to show farmers that he understands the nature of the particular problems that can be caused on farms by really extreme weather events,” he said.
“Going forward, a lot of the repair work cannot be done overnight and farmers like everyone else will have to wait in line for the appropriate trades people to carry out repairs.
“ICMSA thinks that where a farmer can show that he or she was proactive in getting repairs done, no penalty should apply for issues arising from recent weather event,” Caroll added.