Charlie McConalogue says protestors' focus was 'getting social media content'

Charlie McConalogue has criticised a group of independent protestors who turned up to a conference in Athlone on Thursday night.

The Donegal TD, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine, attended the AGM and annual conference of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association (ICSA) at the Athlone Springs Hotel.

One protestor entered the room to remonstrate with the Minister. While the protest was held on the same day as a nationwide series of demonstrations led by the IFA, the gathering at the conference in Athlone was not affiliated with any of the farming bodies.

Around 30 tractors drove through Mullingar town as part of the IFA-backed demonstration on Thursday evening.

“Those farmers, I will absolutely listen to,” Minister McConalogue told The Week In Politics on RTÉ. “I attended and spoke for two to three hours and answering questions from the ICSA farmers the hotel. That did coincided with the evening of a protest with a couple of thousand farmers, organised in different counties and coming out with a clear message.”

Minister McConalogue told programme host Áine Lawlor that ’30 or 40’ protestors, who he said were ‘separate to that entirely and represented no organisation’ gathered at the hotel.

“They were there to protest against other farmers’ organisations as much as they were there to protest against me. Certainly, they were as much focussed on getting social media content as they were getting any key message to say.”

In Letterkenny, there was a huge show of support from local farmers for the IFA-led demonstration as a tractorcade gathered on inbound lane of the Manorcunningham to Letterkenny dual carriageway from 7pm.

The demonstrations were in support of farmers in France, Germany, Belgium and other countries who have been protesting about over-regulation, onerous bureaucracy and income pressure.

Minister McConalogue said: “I am listening very closely. We all have to listen to the pressure that farmers are under. Particularly at European level we have to make sure and there has to be a renewed focus at EU level on food production.”

The Minister said that the decreasing proportion of the EU budget that goes towards agriculture presented a challenge. He vowed to push to ‘maintain and improve’ the allocation.