Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)

All right, that is grand. I will keep going. Pillar 1 and pillar 2 of the CAP have to be retained in order to keep farmers going. We have an awful problem. The Minister said there are 133,000 farmers in the country. How many will there be next year or the year after? Many young, would-be farmers cannot see themselves continuing the slavery and racket that their parents went through to build it up and to keep the thing going. They will go to Australia for an easier life with a five-day week. We must appreciate the farming community more and appreciate the food it produces. We have some other lady in the Oireachtas telling us we should not tamper with foxes and to leave them alone. Does the Minister know the damage they have done to sheep farmers? If a ewe has two lambs it can only defend one, so the foxes take the other one. That is what is happening with the foxes; they have the place overrun. We are supposed to say nothing about badgers, deer and foxes.

Regarding fishing, the Department says we now have around 2,000 vessels. Are fishers still being asked to go for the scrappage scheme? In the 1600s, the fishing industry was developed by the British. We seem to have let it slip. This does not just affect the fishers, but their communities as well.

To go back to the issue of TB, testing has been done here for about 46 years and we seem to be in exactly the same place. I hope the Department is consulting farmers. I heard the Minister say he will make a decisive decision, and that is what is needed, but farmers need to be compensated. It is absolutely terrible when I hear there is a proposal to put up on the screen when cattle are being sold that this farmer has gone down once, twice, three times or whatever, or so many years ago. That will give the buyers an advantage and those cattle will be bought up and sent to the factory or wherever. The price that the farmer who is selling will get will be reduced. At the same time, the animal will be used in the same way as if the farmer got top price for it. I ask the Minister to be fair about it, because farmers on the side of the road-----