Mr. Ciaran Staunton:

I thank Senators and Deputies for their questions. As Senator Hopkins has to leave soon, I will start with her questions. Senator Hopkins, as of now, is non-rural but she is welcome in rural Ireland. We are welcoming people at all times. The reason so many young people are emigrating is broken down into particular areas. When the EU introduced its changes in relation to young farmers it said that the changes were applicable to new entrants because it knew that to set down a particular age in that regard would be discriminatory. A new entrant is not a person who is bored and has billions of euro but a farmer who wants to buy back or return to the land. The forgotten farmer and young farmer is also covered by this measure. As someone old enough to remember the cow and calf schemes of the 1970s and all the various other schemes of that time I recall that regardless of what the problem was it always easy enough to sort out. I am speaking about a time when most people did not have a home telephone such that a local representative would have to visit a house late at night to deal with issues. As such, I come at this from an old fashioned point of view. None of these issues is huge. I have read the European regulations. I have recently come to the view that there are many European bureaucrats who want to hide behind a massive cloak or, to borrow President Trump's word, wall of Europeanism. In other words, one cannot feed the cat milk during the day because the EU says so. None of the regulations around those groups is looked at.

At the end of the day, the Minister has stated that we do not have any additional funding in the budget. We have overspent. One of the reasons there is no money left is because no provision was made for a reasonable claw-back on sales or leasing of entitlements. By kicking this down the road, more people are coming on side. The advisory committee on CAP, which is made up of farmers' groups, is considering these issues. However, these issues are relevant not only to farmers but to lobbyists on behalf of the meat processors who are getting big money, the sheep farmers and various other groups. One group is being paid, on average, €120,000 t €150,000 per annum. At the other end people are getting €8,000 to €10,000 per annum. One group comes from east-south-east. Many of them are getting money based on what business they were doing in 2000 and 2002. I was in the restaurant business for many years. I wish I could get income today based on what I was getting then. However, that is beside the point. All of the areas mentioned are areas uniquely created by farming groups and the EU. The average age of a farmer in Ireland or Europe today is 55 plus years, which begs the question, if we do not get new entrants where will that leave us in 20 years? The people who today are getting €150,000 per annum are not 20 plus year olds, 30 plus year olds or 40 plus year olds. What will they be doing in 25 years?

Everybody in rural Ireland knows that every euro from Europe that is invested in rural Ireland is multiplied three or four in terms of spending power. It does not go to the Cayman Islands or into high interest investments. The first cheque goes to the co-operative; the second cheque goes to somebody else who then hires people to carry out work on land, to contractors or to the people who make silage or haul cattle. A sum of €10,000 paid to a farmer in rural Ireland results in greater spending power than does €100,000 paid to a meat processor.

On engagement with Ministers, given my age I have been dealing with Ministers dating back to the late great Brian Lenihan senior who famously said that this island is not big enough for all of us, which has been said many times since other parties. I would never say that anybody I have ever met does not care about the situation. I have known, the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, since he was a school teacher. I first met him when he came to London to meet the agencies dealing with emigrant housing issues. While some of the people I have met may not have empathy with others it would not be fair to say that I have ever met an elected official who does not care about the situation. I have often had to contact personnel from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the middle of the night and vice versa. I want to ensure that nobody here today gets the impression that anybody on this side of the table believes that any elected official now or at any time since I began dealing with this issue in 1984 does not care. I do not accept that. I do, however, agree that there is very little empathy shown by officials in most Departments.

Leaving aside what was done by a particular member, it is important that people saw it. I am non-political either side of the water. I agree with what was said about the airports. Every year in the weeks before Christmas there are cameras everywhere in the airport filming the great scenes of people returning home for Christmas. What bothers me about this is that there are no cameras at the airports in the first week in January when broken hearted mothers and grandparents are saying goodbye to their children, not knowing when they will see them again. I recall that in a letter some years ago to The Irish Timesfrom former Deputy Proinsias de Rossa on the same issue he mentioned the lighted candle in the window of the home of the President, which is magnificent in terms of symbolism but we need to do more. For more than 30 years, I have been witnessing what happens at the airport. Most people do not know what that is like.

If one does not know what it is like, one cannot learn from the outside. One will never learn from watching it, but if one lives it, one will never forget it. There is also the issue of long-distance calls. Boy, this was brilliant in the 1980s. One called the international operator from New York, who called Dublin, who called Westport, who called Liscarney on a local phone to get through to home and sometimes one would hear, "Tell him to call back, Tessie is not home at the moment." That is how far we have come. Later when we got direct calls, people half in the tank and falling asleep called home and wound up with a $300 bill.

The empty chair has also been mentioned. In my own life, I have an empty chair for different reasons. The empty chair is there over the years. I am talking about people who have never been to a nephew's or niece's communion, who have missed every family occasion, but the only thing they do not miss - and I have seen people borrow the money for this - is coming home to bury the father or mother, or a brother killed in an accident. People borrowed that money or loaned it, as we in the bar business often did. Where one lifts a fellow down from the stool when he gets hammered and makes sure he gets on the plane, saying to someone in Aer Lingus "it is a bad situation, let him on, he has not seen his mother in years", a mother who is dead or dying, those are real human issues. Even today, people have to make a decision either to stay with their American-born children or go home to see their dying parent for the last time; those are the real human issues and I am glad someone has touched on them. I want to pay tribute to that.

The election was mentioned. I tend not to get too involved in it, because it is extremely divisive. I do not do party politics on either side because once one mentions it, one is attacked from all sides. Maybe we deserve that. I do not see any reason for it. People say that the courts have ruled that the Oireachtas makes the rules for elections. Regardless of whether the Oireachtas decides that everyone wants to vote in local, European and presidential elections, I go back to my earlier statement that if an Irish citizen living in Australia can vote for a Senator on a panel, then that citizen has been allowed to exercise his or her franchise. Why should the person sitting beside them who has graduated from the school of carpentry or design or hairdressing or wherever not be able to? Are they lesser citizens? I should not mention hairdressing, because Senator Ó Clochartaigh and I have had a tough day with the hairdressers. I do not think a plebiscite or referendum is needed. I do not know if a referendum is needed, since I am not a constitutional scholar. I know people who have got their letter in the post saying that someone is a candidate on a university panel, and here is a list - I know some of the candidates and I have helped them all. They are all equal when they come to the United States.

I do not have the answers to these questions. That is within this body's remit. There is a campaign at the moment asking emigrants to come home to Ireland. The programme for Government says that we are going to bring 70,000 back. That is like putting the cart before the horse. Maybe that is appropriate in the east part of the country, but in the west an awful lot of people still do not have jobs. Surely we should remove barriers for those who come back, or maybe we should call them speed bumps or hurdles. They are unnecessary for someone coming back. We are talking about the young farmers again. I know of a young gentleman in Galway who had to show his taxes for 2014. He had earned £40,200, so for those extra £200 he was denied access to a green certificate, and to the national reserve.

We have dealt with various Ministers. We lobbied this Administration for a Minister with responsibility for diaspora. We got a famous Kerry footballer, former Deputy Jimmy Deenihan, an absolute gentleman whom I have known for years, who did a great job. He travelled, met people and listened to them. I have yet to meet the current Minister of State. It is very disappointing that he was in Kenya yet could not come to New York. While I know that it will get a lot of lip service now coming up to St. Patrick's Day, I do not believe it has got sufficient attention. Senator Ó Clochartaigh mentioned that the Minister of State had not been in the Seanad. I have not heard from him and I have written to his office on many issues. I am very disappointed with the lack of activity. I am trying to be diplomatic, but I am disappointed with the current administration of that office.

Going back to the US, people get very frightened and worked up. We do not like the language coming from the current US Administration. It has certainly raised the issue of many more people returning to Ireland. Do not forget that for the past eight years, President Obama promised us immigration reform. Many people held out and held out. He deported more than 2.5 million, the most of any US President ever. Again, I am not overly concerned. I am concerned about the hype that is going on about it, but I am not really concerned about what is going on on the ground. I think the other issues were for Mr. McMahon, Ms McHugh and Ms Sullivan.