Electronic Transfer of Payments Should Be Made Available to Farmers

IFA has called on Meat Industry Ireland to provide electronic payment facilities for farmers who are selling livestock.

The Chairman of the Livestock Committee Brendan Golden and the Chairman of the Sheep Committee Sean Dennehy met MII recently to discuss the provision of electronic payments.

“Farmers who are selling livestock should have the option of Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) if they want to avail of it. It is a standard service that exists across society and we want processors to extend it to farmers.”

The exit of Ulster Bank and the branch closures announced by Bank of Ireland will lead to a further contraction of banking services in rural Ireland.

“Farmers simply won’t have the facility to lodge cheques because they won’t have a bank in their community. The absence of an EFT arrangement will put farmers who don’t have easy access to lodgement facilities at a disadvantage.”

Brendan Golden and Sean Dennehy have asked processors to give this matter their urgent attention.

“For cashflow reasons, farmers shouldn’t have to wait for cheques to clear. We expect everybody who does business to upgrade their systems as soon as possible,” they said.