Mr. Jim O'Regan:

I am in a unique position in that I farm in the north in Kilkenny and also east of Cork city, so I can give a perfect example of what went wrong in the area near the south coast and up the west as well. In 2015, if a grower was harvesting less than 4 tonnes to the acre in any area north of the River Blackwater, he would be asked what he did wrong and how come he had such poor yields. At the same time, yields on the south coast were what I would call "Mr. Average" yields of 3 tonnes to 3.5 tonnes to the acre, compared with 4 tonnes to 6 tonnes per acre further north. To move on to the autumn of 2015, we sowed our crops - winter barley, winter wheat and winter oats - and they emerged in fabulous condition.

Everything seemed perfect until the turn of Christmas and we went into the beginning of 2016. We had horrendous storms on the south west coast and on the west coast. It was what is described as a dry storm. The salt spray was blown in off the sea onto the crops. If it was a storm with rain it would have washed the salt off the plant, but it stayed on the plant. Consequently, it burned the plant. It burned most of it out. In fairness to Teagasc at the time, its view was that even the crops that survived would not perform. How right Teagasc was. Even the crops that survived did not perform. It was damage due to the salt burn. Farmers, I suppose, as typical farmers will do, tried to save their crops in every way possible. They sprayed trace elements. They sprayed foliar feed in every way to try and save the crop, but alas, in many cases we failed.

We had a very wet spring in the south and the planting of the 2016 spring crops went very late. The problem was possibly starting there again. We went into the harvest of 2016, and there is where I can give the perfect example. Every bit of cereals that I had east and north of Cork city were harvested, wrapped up and bailed in perfect condition for the All-Ireland Hurling Final on 3 September and the growers south west of the city and along the west coast were not even able to commence. I would say would not have found five tillage farmers from south Cork at the all-Ireland ploughing match, on 26 or 27 of September. Where were they? They were out trying to salvage their crops, and I mean "salvage". I spoke at the Minister's forum on the tillage sector here a month ago and I said that the tillage sector on the south coast was on a life-support machine. The committee members all know what a life-support machine is. It is on death's knell.

We move forward from there. We have engaged in considerable lobbying of public representatives, quite a few of whom are here today. We had a meeting in Kinsale on Thursday evening last. There was a grower there who is one of the best growers in Ireland with excellent tillage land. He sold his produce for €89 a tonne. That is what he got. He salvaged it. The questions those growers put to us were, "How can we pay our bills? What will we use to pay our bills between here and Christmas?" They simply cannot pay them.

Those growers need an immediate aid package. This loan is fine over the next five years and we welcome it but those growers need an immediate aid package to tide them over until next year. There is precedent here for this. In the winter of 2009-10, there was a lot of frost damage done to the vegetable and potato sectors. There was an aid package put in place at that stage for that sector. In 2013-14, we had Storm Darwin. It damaged farm-owned forest on the Cork-Limerick-Tipperary border and there was an aid package put in place. How come an aid package cannot be put in place for growers who suffered similar weather damage? Is there something about being a cereal farmer that one is condemned to being a second-class citizen?

It is no longer acceptable that tillage farmers can be treated like dirt. Aid can be secured for other sectors. If there is a price drop in a produce, we can go to Europe and get support for it. For example, there was a grant system announced 12 months ago and €400 million was allocated for every other sector bar a tillage farmer. How come the tillage farmers were left outside the door in that?

The Minister made a presentation here today on the greyhound sector - we were in the Visitors Gallery listening to it - and he used an important phrase. It is a phrase that I have heard time and time again over the past few months. All the tillage farmers ask for is to be treated fairly. The Minister said he had to have "a level playing pitch". All we want is a level playing field. That is what we ask for. It is our right. Whether it is grant aid, dairy aid or anything else, if there is aid being provided to one sector of Irish farming it should be provided to all.

I will give an example of my own situation. I have a young son at home farming, just married and taking over the farm in time. His next-door neighbour is a young dairy farmer. They went to national school and second level school together. After second level, one studied dairying and the other did tillage, and both of them got their green certificates. How come it is the position that the dairy farmer can get a grant aid for a rotary milking parlour and my son cannot qualify for a grant to buy three basic tools on a tillage farm, such as a sprayer, a combination unit for sowing and a spreader to spread fertiliser? Those are three basic tools. They should be included and if they are not we are effectively saying that tillage farmers are not equal and are not entitled to the same level of aid. If they are not included, they are being put at a competitive disadvantage to their next-door neighbour and that, basically, is immoral.

To turn to the value of our sector, for too long the tillage or cereal sector has been looked upon as the provider of a cheap feed policy. We must move away from the cheap feed policy. We, in the south, have been pushing for something. We googled something last night. There is, on that list, a distilling sector right around the country, virtually in every county up the west coast and down the east coast. Some of the most prominent ones are in my own county. We are the providers of the raw material for that. I attended a Bord Bia seminar recently in Cork where Mr. Aidan Cotter, a most respected gentleman, made a presentation. What is the prize product within Bord Bia presently? Irish whiskey is first. That is the number one growing product. If tillage farmers are given a fair opportunity we can ride out the storm but first, there has to be immediate aid for the farmers affected.

We provide the raw material for three prime products for export presently, namely, the whiskey sector, the micro-beer sector and Flahavan's. Flahavan's is a perfect example in that I supply a lot of quality oats to it. These are niche products. Those sectors will die if we are allowed die. Look what happened to our beet sector. It was thrown away for 30 pieces of silver and as the gentleman here stated, we are moaning the loss of it ever since.