A confrontation is under way in the Irish Republic between multiples and farmers over cut price milk, with producers blockading a dairy which has been supplying Dunnes Stores. The Irish Competition Authority won a High Court injunction in Dublin this week ordering that the blockade of Natural Dairies in Convoy, County Donegal, be lifted. But those named in the court say that while they will obey the law, other producers will take their place on the picket line and that the protest will continue "until prices are restored to an economic level". Dairy farmers claim their livelihoods are threatened by the multiples' price war on milk, which has seen the retail cost of a two-litre own label carton cut from £1.14 to 86p in recent weeks. The powerful 100,000-strong Irish Farmers' Association has warned that it will not allow the price war to continue indefinitely because members would be forced out of business. A blockade by the association in support of higher beef prices closed all processing plants in the Republic earlier this year. Similar direct action forced Iceland to stop stocking frozen New Zealand lamb when farmers invaded some of its Irish stores and seized supplies. The chairman of the Competition Authority, Dr John Fingleton, who initiated this week's High Court action, accused the farmers of acting illegally. He claimed that the cut in retail milk prices, as a result of greater competition between the multiples, would amount to an annual saving for Irish consumers of £74m, "equivalent to a £2 a week saving for a family purchasing a two litre carton daily". To maintain the price cut, some multiples are importing milk from Northern Ireland. {{NEWS }}

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