Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing with four colleagues. I have met many farmers on the picket lines and at meat processing factories around south east over the summer. Farmers are fighting for the livelihoods as the beef industry is being brought to its knees. These farms are producing the best grass-fed product in the world but the processors and supermarkets are being allowed to skim off the lion's share of the profits. Our farmers have been consistently been obliged to put up with a situation where they have been the price-takers while others along the way can see their own margins and ensure massive profits. The fact that there is no clarity as to what margins farmers get for the work they carry out in producing beef illustrates the lack of transparency in the sector.

The so-called protesters are honest hard-working people who would much rather be at home with their families, on their land and with their stock. However, they have come to the realisation that unless drastic action is taken, their homes, land, families and stock are in serious jeopardy. We have been banging the drum on this side of the House respect of the beef crisis for years.

In March last, my colleagues and I brought forward a motion that included much of what has been agreed in talks over the weekend. However our motion, like many others before and after it, fell on deaf ears in this House. As a colleague stated yesterday, this is a reactive and not a proactive Government where the head stays buried in the sand until it is embarrassed or forced into action by an "RTÉ Investigates" programme or the mobilisation of people taking drastic action. This is the reason farmers are being forced from their land to take such drastic action at factory gates because the Government simply does not listen. If we lost 6,000 jobs in a Dublin-based industry, it would be solved overnight and Ministers would be falling over themselves to get a resolution but because it is rural Ireland, they do not think the same way.

I, as did all of us, asked the Minister to ensure that the task force that has been established will follow through and that the base price issue will be addressed and that other issues, including the 30-month rule, the four-month movement and lairage, will all be addressed conclusively and properly, so that the farming families in Carlow and Kilkenny and beyond will have a future in this country. I could say a lot more but I do not have the time.

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