Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)

I thank Deputy Penrose for sharing time. I met members of Kildare IFA on Monday and they expressed their major concerns that this will have a detrimental effect on farming in the county and the catchment area. I had a discussion with the Minister in the past couple of weeks on the uncertainty in regard to the sugar beet crop and this is a further death knell as far as these farmers are concerned. The average number of farmers leaving farming in recent years is frightening.

When these farmers met Commissioner Fischler in Goffs, in Kill, before decoupling began, they were promised no losses would be sustained by farmers as a result of decoupling. They cannot understand that, despite a number of meetings with the Minister for Agriculture and Food and the Commissioner, this matter has not been resolved. I ask the Minister of State to bring this matter to the attention of the Minister for Agriculture and Food. As I understand the new Commissioner is coming here next month, this matter must be resolved as a matter of urgency. Otherwise, there will be a further decline in the numbers of people involved in farming. There will be a further loss for mixed farmers in the midlands and there will be significant problems as a result of young farmers not taking up farming as a livelihood.

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