Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am disappointed that the Minister, who comes from a farming background, will not accept this Bill. If he had amendments to table, I would have welcomed that. He comes from the farming sector, which I come from myself. My mother and father were farmers. I am disappointed the Minister would not do this for the protection of the family home. This Bill would pave the way for a new State-run institution that would give low-interest credit to all farm enterprises. This means credit and access to capital in rural Ireland, which would boost the entire rural economy.

I said I am disappointed, with the Minister coming from a farming background, because many of the problems the farming sector has had with raising funds throughout the years have been because of the detrimental changes the Government and its predecessors have made with legislation and rules they brought in. In 2011, the Government told the farmers of this country to invest in white gold, which was milk, and to increase the national herd. It said that people needed milk around the world and were looking at the farmers. This year, the Government came out with a statement that the herd should be reduced by 25%. Farmers invested in a farm based on what the Government told them to do and the Government reversed it with the stroke of a pen. It does so every time there is a change of government. Farmers borrowed in 2011 and 2012, and onwards, to invest, on the Government's advice, but the Government is saying today to reduce the herd by 25%.

I thank the Rural Independent Group. Mainly, I thank Deputy Collins for the work he has put in to get the Bill to this stage. I also thank Edmund Honohan for his contribution and work, his legal experience, and his first-hand knowledge from his previous career. He knew first-hand how he could help, whereas the Minister's paperwork was written for him by the Department which caused this problem in the first place. We now have a man with a lifetime of legal experience who has given the Minister solutions, but he will not even accept the Bill and try to introduce amendments to save the family home. It would separate the family home from the family farm. That is why I am disappointed. I know the Minister is not a bad person, but he is taking legislation and rules from a Department that writes it for him and tells him this is right. It is wrong. The legal expertise we have from outside is telling the Minister it is wrong. Why does he not seek legal opinion himself? It will tell him the Department is wrong. All it is doing is protecting vulture funds.

The banks in this country have sold off loans. One can call it whatever one likes, whether shadow banking or vulture funds. Those vulture funds or banks can foreclose on or call in a person's loan. That same bank cannot introduce an examiner because it is not the bank's loan. Did the Minister know that?

Does he know that if there is a debt on the farm, the farm retirement scheme can be pulled into the debt of a loan by means of exhaustible execution? Imagine the wording of it. That scheme can be pulled into the debt of a farm, which was caused by this Government and previous Governments. It is so disappointing that the Minister will not accept the Bill, even with amendments, particularly in view of the fact that he is from a farming background.

I look at this as the future-proofing of farming. The failure to protect farms in the country is why farming has not grown. Is there any other SME in Ireland that could sustain its business through all the different changes that come in every time there is a change of Government? Look at the cost of the things that make a difference in farming. Agriculture is very much affected by the shocks in the market that most other industries would only consider to be bumps. Take the weather's effect on crops, Brexit and fluctuations in raw materials production. A while ago, I used the example of the price of milk. There is also the price of meat. There is the price of energy and of fertiliser. All these things come in the margin of farming. All these things are changed every time there is a change of Government.

The main reason for bring forward this Bill was to protect family homes and invest in farms in order that future generations would look at them as viable businesses. It is the heritage of the Minister's family, of my family and of all the sons and daughters of farmers who went on to different jobs. They want to see the family home protected for generations to come. This protection would also be an incentive to new, young farmers. I was out last week on a tractor with Macra na Feirme and the next entrepreneurs in farming. I hope they get all the support they can get. They are taking on an uphill battle because every time there is a change in Government, there is a change in the rules. These people are the next generation, and I am certain that, in his heart, the Minister wants them to survive. With every turn of a key, however, the Government puts something else on them. The Government says farmers must give up so much of their land to plant trees and farmers do it. The Government says farmers must change the way they spread slurry and farmers do it. The Government says farmers must change the amount of fertiliser they put on the ground and farmers do it. Farmers change everything around for the Government while still trying to sustain themselves, but every ten years they have to go back and borrow again. We have Departments telling them how to run their farms and they do it.

Then the Government comes out and says the farming industry is the biggest polluter in the country, when we have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the biggest polluters are the local authorities with their failed sewerage systems. Yet the Government still wants to blame everything on farmers. That is not right. I want to see the protection of the next generation of farmers in order that they can see producing food for this country as a viable business. God help us if anything happens around the world and we look to the farming sector, especially the tillage sector, to protect us. Who did we call on when Covid came? We called on the farmers to grow wheat, barley and oats. That is what the Government called on them to do but it has overregulated farmers.

Fianna Fáil has killed the farming industry every time it has gone into Government in coalition with somebody else. I am talking about the very farmers who voted for Fianna Fáil for many generations. Like the farmers, Fianna Fáil's numbers are going down because people have lost their belief the Government will represent the farming community. Fianna Fáil is on the same trajectory as farming. The party has killed itself by not protecting the farming industry and still it has not learned. We have the former Master of the High Court who has a lifetime's experience of how to help because the matter was in front of him every day of his life, yet the Minister will not take that on board because he is listening to his Department. The Department has lied to the Minister. It is time he got legal advice from outside it and looked at this Bill. I ask him to come back to us. If he wants to amend the Bill, we will work with him but he should not turn down it down. It is about the protection of the farm and of the family home for the sons, daughters, husbands, wives and partners of farmers. That is what we are asking the Minister to do. Before he goes against this Bill, he should think of that. All I am asking him to do is say he will accept the Bill and make amendments to it.

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