Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister can give the facts as he does but that hides the reality that with the supply of beef here and the depressed price the farmers take they cannot make a living.

They are losing money. They are losing the will to continue to farm. That is heartbreaking for all of us.

I ask the Minister not to misunderstand me. I am not laying the blame for all of this at his door. Unlike some of his backbenchers, I am not seeking to overly politicise this matter. There is a requirement for the Minister to involve himself more aggressively in targeting the processors and the supermarkets. He should work towards finding an alternative market source; namely, the live export trade. I am not suggesting it is necessarily easy to do that. If the farmers saw the Minister working more constructively in that regard, rather than sitting on a jet and heading to China again with the industry, they might have more faith in him. They might believe the market can tolerate an increase in production and can deliver to them a price that makes their holdings and livelihoods sustainable into the future.

See this speech in context