Muir is a minister not serving agricultural interests - Jim Allister

Speaking at the farmers' rally on Monday TUV MP Jim Allister said it was a privilege to stand with farmers venting their anger over the handling of cull of 51 cattle in Co Tyrone in June.

Mr Allister told the crowd: “You should have a Minister of agriculture who actually knows about, cares about, and works for farming.

"Sadly, sadly, in this building behind us, we have a minister called the minister of agriculture, who’s the minister of anti-farming, cares nothing for farmers, and has brought us to this sorry plight.

"We listened to the Minister in the committee this morning - what an arrogant diatribe of self-justification! At the end of which we discovered that the victim in all this is Andrew Muir. Who would have thought that poor Andrew Muir is the victim?

"Yes, he’s the victim, quite rightly, of the wrath of the farming community. Deservedly so, because he is a minister who has set his face emphatically against all of you who meet here today. He’s not a minister serving agricultural interests. He might be serving some environmental interests, but he certainly is not serving farming and agriculture interests,” Mr Allister stated.

"I’ve no doubt that, in part, what brings you here today is your anger with the situation that manifests itself near Fivemiletown, and there is much to be angry about.

"And one of the things that makes me angry about this matter is the deliberate distortion and misrepresentation of the legal position. We had a Minister who told us in a written statement on Thursday that the court required the euthanasia of the animals. The court required no such thing.

"I’ve seen, I’ve read the legal documents in this case. Let’s be very clear: this was an order by the court called a deprivation order, it was not a destruction order. It was an order requiring that the farmer in question be deprived of the right to hold livestock, and the livestock that he held should be disposed of,” he added.

"But that order did not require the disposal to be destruction. That order left to the department their discretion. How to dispose of the cattle? They could have sold them somewhere. They could have taken them to an abattoir, but they chose coldly, calculatedly, cruelly, to slaughter them.

"They didn’t have to do that. The order did not require destruction. Yes, disposal could lead to destruction, but it doesn’t have to. The disposal order left the discretion with the department as to how they should be disposed, and in choosing, in choosing to destroy them in the most public, audacious, grotesque manner imaginable, this department showed its utter contempt for farmers and for animal welfare, and took the step that was the most grotesque of all,” the TUV leader said.

"I heard Muir this morning talking about things being grotesque. Yes, they were at your behest Mr Muir, grotesque in the fields at Fivemiletown, the shooting dead, healthy animals that had an outlet in March, had an outlet in other farmers, had an outlet even to be sold for the public good, but the choice that Muir’s butchers took was to shoot them in the manner of which we are all appalled.

"That was the choice of the department, and since Mr Muir knew about it, then that becomes the choice of Mr Muir, and he is the man with whom the buck stops in this regard.

"And the one message from this crowd today is that Muir has utterly, irreversibly, irreparably lost the confidence of the farming community.

"There is only one decent, reasonable, common sense way for Mr Muir to go. That’s to take out his pen, whatever colour it might be, and write his resignation because he’s lost the faith of the people whom he’s supposed to represent,” said Mr Allister.

"And I throw back to him the calculated insult that he put upon each one of you here today. That in opposing him, in calling him out, you’re being misogynistic. You’re being sectarian. You’re being homophobic. Shame on you, Mr Muir.

"Shame on you for deliberately, with predisposition, insulting the farming community, not just here but across this province, to try and divert, protect yourself when you’re the man who should be hanging your head in shame and scuttling out of this building – we’ve seen you scuttle away before.

"We saw him at the Eikon Centre scuttle away. I just wish he’d scuttle out down these steps and then you could all face him. But I guarantee you, he will not, because this is a man with no interest, no interest whatever in your interest, no interest whatsoever in representing you, and therefore the message is very clear.

"Yes, you must go, and the sooner the better,” the TUV leader finished.