Mr. Luke 'Ming' Flanagan:

I apologise for being late. I managed to follow the earlier speakers thanks to technology.

I agree with Ms McGuinness, MEP, that engagement between MEPs and Oireachtas Members is essential. I have asked for this for some time. Perhaps it could be facilitated during green week because we get enough time off. I am delighted to see that is the case and I would like to see it happen more regularly. There is always something happening in what we do and it directly impacts on the citizens of the country, people whom the members of the committee also represent.

I work on the agriculture and rural affairs committee, which is very relevant to the constituency I represent covering the midlands and the north west. I am also on the budget control committee and am a substitute on the environment committee. The budget control committee is a bit of bean-counter committee but it is probably the most interesting committee when one gets into it because we go through every last cent of the people's money that is spent and Ireland is a net contributor. Given the enormity of the CAP budget and the agriculture and rural affairs budget, it is all the more important. We are now entering into the beginning of a debate as to how this money will be divided up.

I am a townie and have never lived on a farm in my life but bit by bit, the penny has dropped as to why the place where I live exists; it exists because we have farmers living outside the town. They are farmers who down the years paid people like my father to put in fitted cupboards. They paid painters in the town to come out and paint their houses. Those farmers and their wives went in and got haircuts. The money was spread around. I know how important this is. At the moment we are talking about a development plan for Ireland and a development plan for rural Ireland; this is integral to it.

We are also talking about how Border areas will struggle because of Brexit. This is also integral to that debate because if we had listened the last time to the then Commissioner Ciolo and had the deal that was done on CAP not been warped and twisted by our Government at the time, people in Leitrim would have got €11 million more per year from CAP and there would have been €29 million more per year for Donegal. There would have been less for the Queen and less for Larry Goodman, but we can get over that. We are now deciding whether we will make that same mistake again or whether we will, in the case of Leitrim, put €3,000 into the pockets of every man, woman and child over the course of the next CAP deal or whether we put it into the wrong people's hands.

People talk about pressure on the budget - there is particular pressure on the CAP budget. One obvious reason is Brexit because the UK is a massive net contributor. There is another reason for pressure on the CAP budget. The penny has dropped among many MEPs that it is going to the wrong people. Rather than arguing that it should go to the right people, many of these people are now saying we need to cut it. MEPs who represent urban areas come in and say this was meant to go to small farmers and was meant to make rural areas vibrant but it is not doing that. They are talking about cutting it on that basis. If it is cut - we will fight to ensure it is not cut - we know who to look at. We need to look at the people who have twisted and turned what was meant to be a payment for small farmers to keep people in family farms and instead left it in the hands of ranchers. We will do our best to ensure it is not cut.

When I went out there I thought I might have had a radical point of view that this money should be redistributed to small farmers. The good news is that even the people in Fine Gael's group, the EPP, agree hook, line and sinker that the money needs to go to the small farmer. Mr. Zeller, who is in the same group as Fine Gael, is on the budgetary control committee. He constantly harps on about how this must change. I am fairly definite that we will get a good deal for small farmers. At one of the last meetings I attended, Marian Harkin made the point that we did not really succeed in the previous CAP negotiations. I am afraid she did not give herself and the MEPs who got the good deal the credit they deserved. The problem was that when it was brought home it was twisted and turned so that it ended up in the wrong hands. We need to ensure that does not happen again if we want rural Ireland to survive.

Another point of great importance - Mr. Carthy and others have mentioned it - is the Mercosur deal. We are apparently going to trade off our suckler farmers and beef industry so that our car industry can thrive. I am sorry, but where is our car industry? We do not have one. We are trading off something we have for something that we will never have and something we are not going to get. If the deal goes through, we will expect our farmers to compete. Our farmers have to explain the origin of their produce and where exactly it has been from the moment the sperm is delivered until a consumer eats the meat on his plate. Now, potentially, we will have to compete with people who farm on the basis that it is sufficient to know where the produce has been for the past three months. Obviously, traceability comes with costs. Costs reduce profitability and make it less feasible for people to farm where we come from. We have to stop this deal. As Mr. Carthy has said, they need beef on the table for this deal to go through. We need to say "No more" to this deal.

I wish to comment positively on the White Paper on the future of Europe. We are now, finally, debating it, but one would have to be concerned. When one sets up a timetable for something, one should stick to it. When the GAA sets up a timetable for the All-Ireland competition, it takes place when it is meant to take place. It does not take place six months later. GAA officials do not come along and say that they did not have to bother telling those involved that it was not going to take place for six months. We were told in March last year by Jean-Claude Juncker that there would be a series of future of Europe debates throughout Europe between March and December and that the matter would brought to the Council and to us for discussion. He claimed there were thousands of debates but there were not. I looked and searched for them. I was obsessed looking for them because I know my future and the future of my children are at stake.

Now, finally, we are having the debates and that is good. As was said already however, we were meant to be debating five options. However, before we got to debate them or before most people even knew there was a debate ongoing, the man who is meant to be leading us, Jean-Claude Juncker, had made up his mind already about a sixth option.

Obviously, there are some brilliant things done within Europe. I may be a sceptic in many areas but when it comes to agriculture I am not. Other important areas include full fiscal union, which potentially we could face and an end to our choice or ability to choose our corporation tax rate - that could be gone. We need a proper debate on that and we need to look at it.

We certainly need to look at defence. At the moment we are being railroaded down the road of something that is described by Federica Mogherini not as a European army but something even more ambitious. We now have socialists standing up in the European Parliament saying this should become our most important project. Food security is our most important project and it has to stay that way but we are pushing in the opposite direction. The Commissioner, Ms Federica Mogherini, continuously cites opinion polls in Europe suggesting support for going further into a European army-type system. If one looks for the information on the matter - at the same meetings where she talks about being open and transparent - one cannot find out what the results were for Ireland even though Ms Mogherini and the Commission have claimed we are all supportive of it. Maybe we are or maybe we are not. Certainly, I am not and I would like to know what the answer to that question is but we cannot find it. Earlier, I said that I am sceptical in certain areas. If we ask a question of the European Commission on agriculture, we get an answer. If we ask a question of Federica Mogherini, we do not get an answer.

We now have a high-level committee on fake news in the European Union. MEPs have a right to find out how the process is organised and how the appointments to these committees take place. I have a serious problem with the person appointed from Ireland. Committee members can find out for themselves who the person appointed from Ireland is - the information is publically available. I have attempted to find out how this process took place with the relevant Commissioner and Commission office. I have looked for an opportunity to express concern over who was appointed. We have not even got an answer. That is what I am at in the European Union and there is far more of it. I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak.