Farmers accuse Fee of foot in mouth
SDLP Assembly member John Fee was forced to do a hasty about turn on Monday when remarks he made trying to link ``erstwhile republicans'' to the current Foot and Mouth crisis backfired badly.
The South Armagh Framers and Residents Committee issued a strongly worded statement attacking Fee's comments, sentiments echoed by Sinn Féin.
``John Fee has clearly jumped with both feet into his own mouth following his unfounded and unwarranted allegations against the people of South Armagh and in particular the farming community regarding the issue of the Foot & Mouth disease that has been located in the area,'' the group said.
During several live radio interviews John Fee stated: ``There are individuals in the south Armagh area who are actively hampering the agriculture ministry and police operations to seal off the containment area.'' Not surprisingly, both Danny Kennedy and Ian Paisley welcomed Fee's statement.
However, when Brid Rodgers, the Minister for Agriculture and a party colleague of Fee's, was asked if she was aware of any intimidation, she replied ``absolutely not''. In addition, when her southern counterpart, Joe Walsh was asked about Fee's allegations that cross-border smuggling was contributing to problems in efforts to control the disease, Walsh responded: ``There is no evidence whatsoever of any illegal importation of livestock into the southern jurisdiction, not at all.''
The SAFRC reported that to their knowledge, John Fee had not visited the Meigh area and had no right to issue such a scurrilous and damaging statement to the media. There was agreement, said the SAFRC, that John Fee was using the issue as a political football.
Fee's accusations were unsurprisingly echoed by the DUP. On Tuesday, the DUP's Willie McCrea engaged in a verbal sparring match with a 26-County Department of Agriculture civil servant. The civil servant was irate at accusations from McCrea that southern authorities were covering up incidences of Foot and Mouth.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)