The Supreme Court has dismissed a challenge by three County Tipperary farmers to regulations that significantly restricted how they could lease or transfer their milk quotas.
Nicholas Philip, otherwise Martin, Maher, Malachy Brett and Rita Ryan had each retained milk quota while stepping away from active milk production for personal reasons. Their arrangements had included leasing farmland with quota attached or temporarily transferring quota to other producers.
That position changed under the European Communities (Milk Quota) Regulations 2000. The new rules were designed in part to direct quota towards active milk producers and allowed unused quota, in certain circumstances, to return to the national reserve.
The practical consequences differed between the three farmers. Maher, who owned 130 acres including 36.17 acres carrying a 28,170-gallon quota, wanted to retain the quota in case his children later entered dairy farming. Brett, aged 76, had leased land and temporarily transferred part of his 24,404-gallon quota because of ill-health. Ryan owned 20 acres carrying an 11,844-gallon quota which she had temporarily transferred to her local co-operative.
They argued that the Minister had made major policy choices by regulation when such decisions could lawfully be made only through legislation passed by the Oireachtas. They also maintained that forcing quota towards restructuring at a ministerially determined price interfered with their property rights.
Mr Justice Fennelly held that the disputed measures remained closely tied to policies established by European Community regulations, particularly the objective of allocating quota to active producers and restructuring milk production. The Minister was therefore filling in permitted detail rather than creating an independent national policy requiring primary legislation.
The court also rejected the property-rights argument. European case law had established that milk quota, as an advantage created by the Community market regime, did not carry a protected right to dispose of it for profit in the manner claimed.
The Supreme Court therefore dismissed the appeal, leaving the 2000 milk quota regulations in force as applied to the applicants.