'How do you replace Michael Ring?' - Mayo farmers give election insight
by Caoimhín Rowland
Apathy, not anger, is the prevailing mood of the opening jousts of election 2024.
A trip to the Ballina/Sligo Mart on the Crossmolina road on a Tuesday afternoon would certainly give you such an impression.
In comparison to a vox pop in February 2020, when the name Leo Varadkar came rumbling off the lips of farming folk from the north of this constituency like a hair to be spat out, this time in 2024 it’s a more local, now a retiring TD, who has stolen the show, but for opposite reasons.
How to replace a man like Michael Ring was the chatter from men from Achill, Moygownagh, Killala and Glenamoy. “I don’t know any of the new ones, but I’m sure they’ll be grand.”
Debates, dear boy, are not at the top of sheep farmers minds when there’s work to be done ahead of Christmas and the weather still fine.
In 2020, it was evident from speaking to the farming community that a Sinn Féin surge was coming.
Rose Conway-Walsh was the ideal candidate and from a brief chat with men from Blacksod to Charlestown, she wasn’t just going to do remarkably well, she was about to blow many a pundits prediction out of the water.
This time around, Michael Fitzmaurice was the man of the moment, interestingly.
Sligo gene pool Fianna Fáil and now Independent Ireland councillor Michael Clarke was brought up several times too. As was Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary.
Ballina Mart is a long way from gilded Mullingar campaign launches but the sentiment he uttered travelled favourably to the west.
“A lot of truth in what he says, far too many administrators, pencil pushers and folks who will never lose their job and only know safety striking payments off farmers,” I was informed.
The ACRES scheme, which aimed to adapt land use in ‘less productive areas of Ireland’ to help aid biodiversity, was well intentioned, but its execution has left a bitter taste in the mouths of the farming community.
Farmers feel they are being unfairly punished, based upon arbitrary maps from civil servants and, worse, privatised companies working on behalf of civil servants.
“I’ve bog the size of four football fields, all excluded from payment,” that was the closest I got to sense vitriol. Independent Ireland’s Michael Fitzmaurice labelled it “the greatest land-grab in history.”
Indeed, the price of commonage in areas around north Mayo and Achill Island, where it’s plentiful, has fallen through the floor, leaving farmers dismayed.
Imagine working for decades, clearing bushes, draining fields and planting seed so your son or daughter can have better land than what you were left with, only to be told rewild and we’ll pay. And then the payments don’t come; worst then, if they do, you’re told you were paid by accident, can we have that €5,000 back please?
Pension age played a huge role in 2020, that landed worse with much of the farming community then than it has now. It’s a much more tangible policy discussions than land use or forestry.
It also helped a significant Sinn Féin surge develop.
Simon Harris, a more canny Taoiseach than his party predecessor, learned from this, and an extra €300 in the pockets of many farmers or social welfare claimants hasn’t gone unnoticed.
One man asked me when quizzed on the current government: “Do they think we’re fools? Sending a double payment, I don’t need, but mind you I won’t be sending it back.”
My short afternoon out left me pondering, if people are apathetic about the state of play, ultimately they’re happy and if they’re happy it will be a boost to the status quo.
Most were more than keen to give their own predictions:
“It’ll be Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael together” was the most common response.
The expected demise of the Green Party wasn’t met with too much glee, just an acceptance that their jig is up. Few who frequent Ballina Mart will shed tears.
Strikingly, Rose Conway-Walsh appeared top of farmers minds. A man from Killala told me: “Isn’t it better to have one strong woman fighting your corner than 10 men.”
Talk of her seat being lost has been over-egged. In the absence of Ring and despite Dara Calleary being Minister of Agriculture longer than it took him to get the fact printed on business cards, Rose remains the farmers’ choice.
She queries their issues in the Dáil but, in opposition and with only one councillor in the county, is left toothless. Ballina people, much more than the folk of the county town, vote 1 and 2 of the town. Calleary and Duffy.
“We need two in this town at least,” one farmer uttered.
Whether that will be replicated in Castlebar with ‘Dillon and Chambers’ is a little less likely to see.