Welsh farmers will continue blockade
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by Nicky Clarke and David Craik • Welsh farmers plan to continue blockading ports following recent action which has cost Irish beef hauliers thousands of pounds.
Hundreds of marauding Welsh farmers forced Irish beef lorries en route to British shops to return home following two nights of blockades.
The action began at Holyhead Port on Sunday evening with the dumping of 20 tonnes of Irish beefburgers into the sea. It continued at Fishguard the next night when six Irish lorries were forced to turn back.
Irish hauliers have lost thou sands of pounds because of the blockades. The drivers of two trucks owned by County Roscommon-based John SpaIlin were advised by farmers and ferry operator Stella not to drive off the boat after a consignment of Irish beefburgers destined for supermarket chain Tesco was dumped into the sea.
"This has cost me a couple of thousand pounds," says SpaIlin. "I've got to pay the ferry out and back again, and who'll give it back to me? The farmers should be targeting the factory, not the haulier," The Welsh farmers are protesting about collapsing beef prices and the unfairness of EC subsidies to Irish farmers.