Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Here is the real problem and issue. The Minister knows I had fundamental disagreements with the way in which the previous Government and this Government when it took office approached the EU budget negotiations. I was part of some of the conversations. They did not condition Ireland paying an increase of several hundred million euro into the EU budget on us getting a return through the programmes that were most important. Be that as it may, the battle lines for next EU budget and the next Common Agricultural Policy are already being drawn. If we have an Irish Minister with responsibility for agriculture saying we are better off when clearly we are not we are undermining ourselves for the next Common Agricultural Policy.