Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegates from the IFA to the committee and also those in the Visitors Gallery. I especially welcome my own fellow county man Mr. Fintan Conway. I note the president of the IFA had not mentioned that Mr. Conway is from Westmeath. That is important for me.

The disastrous events of the last year or so are just bringing to the surface the ongoing sequence of events over the last four or five years. This issue is just coming to an apex. Last year's yields disguised many things and I am not surprised that the weather conditions actually accelerated this whole problem. The problem is obviously very pronounced in the south and the western seaboard but let us not forget that it also has a midlands dimension, for example in Roscommon, Longford and Westmeath. There are a dozen farmers in Westmeath who are in a similar situation. It is right across the State and it is about 400 farms. We raised it with the Minister fairly aggressively at an earlier meeting here today and indicated that €4.5 million or €5 million would be the type of money that would deal with the problem.

However, the Minister may be starting at the wrong end by talking about the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland and the loans available. This is not a matter of loans because people are already in debt. The Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland may be very good next year at dealing with merchant credit, which can be very costly, and in giving us money at cheaper rates. While this would help, it will not alleviate this problem. This needs addressing immediately and requires meaningful interaction or the exodus of grain farmers from the industry will accelerate. That would be the end of it. This would have a knock-on effect, as my colleagues have said, not just for the grain and cereal industry. It will also affect the brewing and malting industry and everywhere else; the whole place will collapse. This is of grave importance. We argued with the Minister about the de minimisceiling and such matters today and we indicated to him that perhaps it should be reviewed. Help should be sought when the IFA president is in Brussels tomorrow. It would be worth exploring because Ireland is small in the overall pool and if we are to get some EU assistance then we must make friends with the big ones - the French and the Polish - who must also be suffering in other ways.

We must work in that way, hopefully, and assuming we are successful in securing some sort of a crisis aid package for the industry at national level and with EU support, then we could address some of the matters that were raised, especially by Liam Dunne, the IFA's grain chairman over the last five years. These concerns include the abolition of tariffs and the duties on fertiliser and they must become a major focus. I agree with Deputy Martin Kenny that while we need to address the immediate concern, we need also look to the medium term as there will be an ongoing crisis in the tillage area, and particularly in grain farming, if we do not take proactive steps. Some farmers have lost more than 40% and 50% of their yield. I know of some farmers who have been wiped out altogether in the current year of adversity. Straw has been a disaster and the perverse situation is that the price of any straw available has gone through the roof.

This is typical. When demand exceeds supply, farmers are getting robbed at the other end when trying to buy straw, the price of which has gone through the roof, which is adding insult to injury.

It is a major issue for individual farmers. We have raised it with the Minister today and we also raised it in September and followed it through. I would be interested in finding out from some of the individual farmers about their own losses in this area and what steps this committee can take to try to assist their campaign to secure an aid package at national level. At European level we need to make sure the Commissioner takes full cognisance of the situation, and I know they have already impressed some of these points on him. When will this IFA survey be available, given I am sure it will be informative and instructive in regard to how to proceed from here?