‘It used to be about grants to drain bogs — now it’s grants to re-wet the bogs’

Kiely, who spent almost 40 years dealing with agriculture in the EU, began life on a mixed farm near Killenaule in Tipperary.

He first went to Brussels back in 1984 to run the IFA’s EU lobbying and listening post.

In 1989 he was recruited to the European Commission and within a year he was press spokesman for Ireland’s Agriculture Commissioner, Ray MacSharry, who was facing bitter IFA criticisms for his reform plans.

Kiely went on to be press spokesman for three agriculture commissioners, going through tough challenges and many changes.

MacSharry is recalled as the one who completed the end of the infamous grain and beef mountains, which seriously damaged the image of food production, and then went on to reshape the CAP, beginning to cut the link between production and farmer incomes.

The Sligo man was followed by René Steichen of Luxembourg to whom it fell to implement the MacSharry reforms.

Steichen was succeeded by Franz Fischler of Austria, who had to confront BSE and other challenges like African swine flu.

For two solid years, in 1995 and 1996, Kiely’s distinctive Tipperary tones were a feature of BBC radio and television as he successfully fought the EU line on ‘mad cow disease’ against the obduracy of a recalcitrant UK Conservative government.

Thatcherite policies had largely caused the crisis and often it seemed that the Irish accent was an additional irritant to embattled Tories.

In 1999 Kiely was seconded to the EU’s Washington embassy and worked on a range of agri-trade issues until 2005, when he was back in the senior ranks of the Brussels administration.

When Phil Hogan became the second Irishman to hold the post of Agriculture Commissioner from 2014-19, Kiely became a trusted confidant, before working out his final years before retirement just weeks ago as head of the EU’s Dublin office.

So, after a range of EU appointments close to the top of the administration the CAP, how does he view the future of Irish farming and the European Union?

 

Fundamental

“The changes are fundamental and the approach is all about environmental sustainability,” he says.

“But, by definition, there also has to be money in sustainability for Irish farmers — and there will be. Otherwise it just won’t work.”

Kiely is determined that the Covid-19 crisis means the EU must be given a stronger role in framing public health policy. He is unsurprisingly determined that, despite current glitches in vaccination, Ireland’s only option was to stay with the EU on the issue.

“If Ireland went alone, we’d be paying far more for less and getting it much later,” he says.

He also firmly believes that Hogan’s departure from Brussels was a loss to Ireland and Irish agribusiness.

“He came with a great knowledge of Irish farming and its needs,” Kiely says.

“He forged a great reputation for his work rate and his judgement and in the trade portfolio, he would have been a great plus for Ireland.”

Online Editors