Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As we are discussing food and the importance of food, it is great to see young people in the Chamber for part of this debate. They are probably here on a tour. It is an interesting debate to be part of. Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire agus roimh a chuid oifigigh go dtí an Teach.

With all my colleagues I welcome this Bill. This is a really significant day not alone for farmers but also for consumers because it is going to give hope to producers, particularly smaller producers. I commend the Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It is a fantastic committee. The Minister has had great engagement with it. Unfortunately I was not successful in getting on it because of my background in horticulture and because we have a family farm at home. I regret that but I engage because as an Oireachtas Member I am entitled to engage. It is an important committee within the Houses of the Oireachtas.

With this food supply chain Bill we have come to a situation where we are going to have a food regulator. I compliment Niamh Lenehan and wish her well. No doubt she will be excellent at her job. It means that for the first time in this country we are giving certainty to producers. To put it in context, the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, was at a very successful evening in Roscommon in recent months. By the way, they want him down again. We will talk about that again. When I talked to a few of the smaller farmers they told me that their fathers used to grow a bit of grain, a few potatoes and some carrots and parsnips. South Roscommon was very well known for its vegetables. It is all gone. One of the reasons it is gone is that the multinationals control the market. They are buying in massive bulk. Of course, when they are part of a chain, suppliers have to adhere to the rules. They are clearly saying to me that for the first time in a long time a Minister and his officials recognise that we need to do something about food security in our own country. To a person with a horticultural background, it is utterly shameful to see Spanish onions and broccoli from Kenya here. By the way, even blueberries can be grown very successfully on Irish bogs in acid ground. Bord na Móna did trials for a long time. We spend millions of euro on that type of fruit now because our population looks at things that are really good for you, and blueberries are. They are coming in from Morocco, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil and every place. That is happening because the smaller producers in this country could not survive, or felt they could not survive. I realise that horticulture is not totally part of the Minister's brief but I want to make this point. We have to arrive at a situation in this country, and our people have to get the message. When we look at the war in Ukraine and Covid-19, we see what agriculture did in producing all of that food. We can look at Ireland's record of producing really good food, much of which goes for export. Last year the figure was an incredible €15.5 billion. We need to encourage our people here to get back into food production by growing potatoes, grain and the types of vegetables and fruit that can be grown in this country. With climate change, it is probable that more food types can be grown here now. That type of self-sufficiency is important for every nation. We can do it brilliantly.

To get back to my original point, the smaller producers were not doing it because they were afraid it would not be economically viable. I hope we can develop this. What the Minister is doing is a huge step forward. When I was telling farmers in Ahascragh, Ballyforan and my own area of Strokestown about this legislation, they said that if they had some support like this, it would give them hope. We will work, we will go back into food production. We will produce the food in a very good way. Senator Garvey mentioned the local markets. Those markets are very important. I thank the Minister and his officials, and Senator Paul Daly and all those on the agriculture committee. Hopefully this initiative will deal with unfair trading practices whereby the big operators have bullied the little people out of the way. That is what has happened. We all know that is what has happened. Let us be honest and frank about it. To the consumer I will say that I went into one of the bigger stores in a provincial town and picked up vegetables at a very cheap price, as well as two other products at a dear price. When I got back to my own little supermarket in Strokestown where we have every service, I picked up the two other products cheaper than they were in the multinational supermarket in the provincial town, and there was only a couple of cent difference in the price of the vegetables. I had travelled 14 km to that town, not specifically to buy those groceries, and taking everything into account, I was better off doing business in my home supermarket. This is a good day for food producers and the agriculture sector in this country.