‘Not allowing the Banagher factory would be criminal’
see my father. He was in bed sick and had lost his speech at this point. It was Kelly and two henchmen,” he jokes.
“I was sent for. There was a county ICMSA AGM the following Friday, and they wanted me to stand for a national council seat.
“‘No way,’ I said. I had no interest in it, but my father, who was using an alphabet, wrote the words ‘you will’. So that finished that.”
Cahill won the seat 55-5 and went on to be elected president in 2005 after a turbulent number of years for ICMSA, with a significant rift developing in the organisation and a staff strike.
Cahill says the organisation has gone from strength to strength since that time. “I was very happy leaving ICMSA that it was in a very good position,” he says.
National politics was the next challenge for Cahill, who stood in the 2014 local elections.
“I was always a Fianna Fáil man, but I would never have allowed my politics to influence me in farming politics. I got on as well with Simon Coveney as I did with Brendan
Smith,” he stresses.
“It was a hard battle to get on the council at the start with four Fianna Fáil councillors running for nine seats. People said it couldn’t be done with the party at such a low ebb at the time.”
He went on to win a seat in the 2016 General Election and held it last February “on a bad day for Fianna Fáil”. The party still needs to come to terms with its poor showing in the last election, Cahill feels.
“It hasn’t been analysed yet why it has been so bad. It will be a tough battle too for the seat again the next time. We are in government, we are getting the blame for everything: if the cat had kittens at the moment, we’d get the blame,” he says.
He believes there has been
Grassroots politics:
Jackie Cahill pictured on his farm outside Thurles;
he says dairy farmers should be wary of too much expansion too soon. ‘The costs involved are plenty and if you go in too far you’re not able to come back. too much focus on things that weren’t hugely impacting on the economy.
“We have managed to shoot ourselves in the foot on issues. I think the media are being unfair on the Government — there was definitely no honeymoon period.
“If a Sinn Féin person had the same misdemeanours as Barry Cowen, would he have got the same witch hunt? I’m not saying what Barry did was right, but he had served his sentence.”
Given his credentials, Cahill was disappointed not to get the Agriculture Ministry when his party returned to power in June.
“I think I had a serious CV in agriculture. Not only did I represent farmers at the highest level, but I was also eight years on the dairy board, including four as vicechairman, I was chairman of the NDC, I was on the Bord Bia board for six years.
“I consider that I know all sides of the industry. I wouldn’t be just coming to the table as a farmer.
“I was disappointed, but sure look, that’s life and you move on. Maybe the next time.”
Farming has become a very isolated profession, Jackie Cahill says, recalling summers drawing in the hay with dozens of farmers around to help each other.
“That’s not there any more; if you’re stuck now it’s hard to get someone,” he says.
“Fellas are going away from it because the money is not in it. Dairy farmers have got very big, but they have put huge workloads on themselves.
“Farms are getting bigger, but they are not getting wealthier.”
The new Minister has signalled his support for further convergence, but Cahill says it must be a very gradual process.
“It is too simplistic to go for 100pc convergence,” he says. “There are a lot of farmers with a large payment per hectare but a low overall payment — convergence is going to hit them very hard.
“There are full-time farmers and part-time farmers. Are you going to say a person on low-quality land, who has to work offfarm, (should get) the same payment per hectare as a man trying to derive his full living from farming?
“There are an awful lot of questions here to be examined and discussed.”
Cahill feels there is an urgent need for a new agrienvironmental scheme.
“GLAS was a joke. The cost of compliance was far too high. It was a waste of time. We need a scheme like the old REPS where there is a financial return for farmers.”
The proposed Chinese investment in a meat factory in Banagher is high on Cahill’s agenda.
“If this is stopped, it will be an absolute national disaster,” he says. “They’re saying there is spare capacity in the industry and the industry doesn’t need this factory. But there is definitely not spare competition.”
Cahill stresses the importance of an independent operator entering the industry and the potential for access to the Chinese market.
“This the market we are trying to get into for the last five to 10 years — not allowing this would be criminal,” he says.
The splintering of farm organisations in recent years has not been to farmers’ benefit, Cahill feels. He explains that in the past, IFA, ICMSA and ICOS had a sort of a social partnership.
“With seven or eight farm organisations now it is very difficult to get agreement. It’s too easy for a Minister to avoid being put under extreme pressure on any particular issue,” he says.
“Farmers have always been an effective lobby when they to come with a consensus view. Farmers need to look at what served them well in the past and what might serve us into the future.”
‘Some people think these herds of cows are white gold, but the costs involved are plenty and if you go in too far, you’re not able to come back’