Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Commissioner and his staff. CAP is the big issue facing us for the next few years. The budget is vital. We must ensure the largest possible budget for Irish farmers and farm families. I welcome the announcement this morning of the €60,000 cap. That is appropriate at this point. We must find some way of capping that budget. This brings me to Pillar 1 in particular. We have an entitlement system based on something involving farming activities 20 years ago. Entitlements are becoming a commodity that is traded, leased, rented and messed around with. There is an opportunity to find a way out of that. I would appreciate hearing the Commissioner's comments on the matter. Previously, there was an element of greening in Pillar 1. Will that be removed? It was mentioned that there will be more flexibility and that member states will have more autonomy over it. Will that mean fewer rules and less counting of things, which I think farmers want to see happen, so that there will be an element of trust that the farmer is doing the right thing and does not need to be checked, watched and studied all the time? The latter has certainly been the experience up to now.

With regard to fair trade and fair prices, it always strikes me that every farmer says we need the live export trade. Unless there is a release valve that creates pressure on the price so that factories can start to pay more, the processors will not give farmers a fair price. This tells us that the processors and the big meat barons are in the driving seat, which should not be the case. It is about regulation and trying to bring some flexibility into it so that we can be sure we are looked after.

Theresa Villiers has a motion before the House of Commons to stop live exports from Great Britain after Brexit. This would mean that a farmer in my part of the country in Leitrim who bought a bullock in Fermanagh could not bring it back across the Border because it would be a live export from the UK. This is the type of nonsensical situation at which we could arrive.

I wish to ask again about the Mercosur trade deal. On the previous trip to Brussels which I was on the Commissioner said he expected it to be concluded quite soon. We are some way down the road since then and we have not seen much movement on it. I welcome that fact. I hope there will not be much movement on it. Where does the Commissioner believe that deal is going? What direction is the EU taking in respect of not only Mercosur but all trade deals? How vulnerable will Irish agriculture continue to be in the future in respect of such deals, which are being made, by and large, at the behest of big industry and the commercial sector, in particular insurance and financial services, that want to get into other markets and are trading off against the importation of cheap agricultural produce? I will leave it at that.