Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Today, as has been mentioned, Macra na Feirme came to Leinster House and launched its campaign, Steps for our Future. I commend each of their members. They are young farmers fighting for their futures. I, and many others, believe that we need to get to grips with the issue of generational renewal. The reason that has become such an issue and many people have been put off going into farming is there is not enough confidence that they will have a future and a viable and sustainable income from farming. Many of them are forced to only farm part time or abandon the idea entirely. To get to grips with generational renewal, we must instil confidence in young farmers that we are behind them as politicians on every side of the House.

We also need to assure them that there is transparency in price and they will have a decent income at the end of it. Deputy McNamara mentioned retailers and selling to processors. There must be transparency in that regard. In January, the Minister mentioned that the new office of the regulator would have two key functions: delivering price and market analysis and reporting. However, it needs to deliver accountability and hold retailers and processors to account. The regulator needs to have teeth. We need to get to grips with these issues or the situation will become far worse, given that the age profile of farmers is increasing all the time. We, in the Rural Independent Group, support farmers every day, not just on the one day they are forced to come to Dublin to demand their rights and fight for their futures. We have raised many a time the lack of transparency on price. We brought forward a Bill in 2020 calling for transparency in the beef sector because we made commitments to beef and suckler farmers in our constituencies, which we followed through on. We now need to collaborate and make sure we can work together as Deputies to ensure farmers have more transparency and get a fair price for high-quality produce. A lot of work goes into what they do and input costs are rising all the time. Many farmers are demoralised. They need to have confidence that they will be rewarded for their work in producing high-quality food.

Only the Government can bring forward this legislation. Efforts are needed to ensure the new food regulator is not just a regulator in name and tokenistic. It has to really have teeth and have the power to issue fines of up to €10 million to companies in breach of unfair trading practice regulations. I want to see evidence of that and an immediate culture change in this area. Ireland has much experience of what happens when a light-touch approach to regulation is implemented. We do not need a repeat of that. We need true accountability and to build confidence quickly. Farming must be promoted to try to attract more young people into the sector. Nobody wants to see a hostile regulatory environment created but we urgently need to shift the balance of power in this area. For too long, farmers have had to just walk away and accept the price he or she is given, not knowing what price the retailer pays the processor. These are basic, reasonable requests. If the political will exists within government, this should be made a priority and put into action as soon as possible and, therefore, I fully support Deputy McNamara's amendments.

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