Gerard Murphy (Cork North West, Fine Gael)

The facts are that Cork North-West is a rural constituency that depends almost entirely on the agricultural industry. Fianna Fáil in Government for 18 out of the past 20 years has presided over the destruction of the farming industry in our constituency. The whole infrastructure in the area is based on market towns like Newmarket, Kanturk, Charleville and Millstreet, which depend totally on a good agricultural industry for their survival. There are three independent co-operatives, Newmarket co-op, North Cork co-op and Boherbee co-op. They are the mainstay of the local economy but they will go into decline as farming is declining in the area.

The proposed rationalisation of Teagasc offices in the area will further lead to a downturn in the economies in these towns. The farmers are confused. They have no idea what the future holds for them. There is no planning, no leadership and no hope for the future of the industry in our area. The simple fact is that Fianna Fáil wrote off the agriculture industry before the last general election; up to then it had simply ignored it.

Fianna Fáil strategists and their American pollsters took a conscious decision that the election could be won. Farming and agriculture no longer had the numbers electorally and so yet again farming could be sacrificed in the EU and world trade negotiations in order to deliver for the Celtic tiger. Farming has always been the building block on which our economy was based and still accounts for a large proportion of our exports. The Government can get away with this strategy as long as the Celtic tiger is still running but there are clouds on the horizon. Firms are moving to economies based on cheaper labour, interest rates are increasing and there is uncertainty over energy supplies whose costs are rising.

That brings me to what used to be the sugar beet industry. It will most certainly have disappeared by the end of next year. A valuable crop for farmers in north Cork was swept away almost overnight with no prospect of a replacement. The valuable factory jobs during the beet campaign helped many smaller farmers in the western region to remain in farming. For years, this activity provided a valuable income for small farmers. Despite the fact that the demise of the sugar industry was inevitable, the Government failed to come up with any positive proposals for an industry based on renewable energy — for example, to make beet growing viable as a biofuel crop or to come up with a replacement crop. There were no plans to convert the sugar factory itself into a modern facility to produce biofuels. The Government has no vision or idea of what the future holds for farmers. It has no plans to address our energy crisis or for biofuel crops. It has a haphazard approach to promoting wind energy which, if done properly, would have gone some way towards making a contribution to farm viability.

This is despite the fact that the security of energy supply is fundamental to keeping the rest of the economy secure. Until recently, it was thought that only strong, committed farmers with intensive, well-run operations would survive but this has proved to be another myth. The nitrates and phosphate directives will put paid to the ambitions of such farmers. The directives hit at the heart of commercial farming and unless the Government makes changes to both directives commercial farming as we know it will be over. Family pig farms cannot cope with the phosphate directive and the poultry sector will also be in serious trouble.

Why will there be a need for the Government and the EU to continue supporting REPS when the proposals on phosphate and nitrates by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, go much further than the REP scheme ever did?

See this speech in context