Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In ainm Dé, buíochas le Dia, the weather, tá an aimsir tirim inniu. We have had good weather for the past week and it is so badly needed, praise the Lord, because we cannot do anything without God, in my opinion. The weather helps everything. I just spoke to my neighbour, Diarmuid McGrath, and he is setting the potatoes today. We will have potatoes for Christmas dinner. We will not be eating lettuce or something like that. I plead with the Minister to cut out the red tape and cut out the baggage. Farmers are being strangled.

I support what Deputy Nolan said about the farm contractors. The FCI is an organisation which I helped found. They need a break. Stop removing the benefit they were given on the excise duty and stop the carbon tax. It is madness. Farmers are under severe pressure and it is likewise with agri-contractors. Fair play is fine play with me. There are State and semi-State bodies like An Taisce and the EPA that are blackguarding farmers, denigrating them and misleading them with untruthful reports and biased reports. They claim to let out the county councils where they are belching sewage into rivers and streams throughout the country. They gave a good, green map of Tipperary, but it was a totally untrue, fake, false report from the EPA again. I want to call it out here. It is an arm of Government, and it is down on the farmers like a ton of bricks, but no farmer wants to be polluting. If they do, they should be dealt with severely. This is fake, and there is demonising of farmers by the left wing in the House, by the media and by all and sundry. In the past three recessions, I remember the farmers took us out of them by the scruff of the neck. The farmers spent locally the money they got from the Department and everybody else. I ask the Minister to please try to ensure they get their payments. If they are held up for any kind of reason at all, it is totally unfair. The schemes that have been devised are so bureaucratic and so difficult. Please call off the dogs of the EPA. No disrespect to anyone working there but the reports are false and fake. They are discrimination and they are downright untrue.

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