Paraic Brady (Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The witnesses are very welcome. I am delighted to see the relevant people from the Department and other bodies are here. We must be blunt. Whether we like it or not, there is a need for the competition authority to be called in at some stage, because this will affect the merchants.

A word has been bandied about by the Department of agriculture for the past eight or nine months, namely "simplification". We have heard it numerous times. The reality is that it is not getting any simpler for the farmer. There is more and more paperwork. These are the facts. The Department is now pegging more on top of us again. The reality is that the farmer knows his animals, if he is doing his job right and is qualified and in the Bord Bia scheme. He is taking faecal samples. As Deputy Aird said, he knows if the cattle in the shed have lice. One is either a farmer or one is not a farmer. When cattle in the shed have lice, the farmer will clip their backs and hope the lice do not cross and then the farmer will apply a lice powder. It is very simple. Farmers know about best practice.

This morning, I had a calf with a swollen navel. I know he needs Synulox. I cannot go into the veterinary practice to get it. I have to go to my local vet to get it. I understand that if a calf is dehydrated, we give it Lactaid. It is called simplification, but we are putting bands and rules on top of farmers. We decided that we were not going to do this, but now we are at it again. Do we not understand that when we go to the co-op we can give a herd number or a tag number? This is what Bord Bia is about. We have traceability in respect of everything. It is very simple. Why are we trying to complicate stuff? Does Ms Garvan not agree that if I went to the local co-op tomorrow morning and if it had a system, I could not give a tag number and get a delousing powder for the cattle in the shed?