Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)

If the Minister has met the Commissioner, she should not broadcast it too loudly because he is clearly not taking too much notice of her.

Has the Minister thought about the significant challenge ahead in terms of feeding a world population that is growing by 80 million per annum and will reach 9.2 billion by 2050? Has she raised with the Commissioner the challenges and consequences of climate change, including food miles, CO2 emissions, urbanisation, desertification, increasing consumption, water shortages, record low levels of global food inventories, famine and death? All these issues are relevant to a proper defence of the CAP in the WTO negotiations. Perhaps the Minister's understanding of climate change in this context is based on the pronouncements of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, about the twin evils of the cow and the car. The Minister, Deputy Gormley, could yet have his way as these proposals will decimate the suckler cow herd and, in one giant leap, allow the Government to meet its legal obligations to reduce the CO2 emissions from agriculture.

Much has been made by the Minster, Deputy Coughlan, of the fact that Mr. Mandelson is exceeding the brief given to him by the Council of Agricultural Ministers in October 2005. This raises three questions. First, the 2003 CAP reforms were set forth as the EU contribution to a world trade deal. Why should European farmers, including Irish farmers, and European consumers have to pay twice for that deal? Second, we are now reaching a crisis point in negotiations. What has the Minister done in the last two and a half years to ensure non-trade issues such as climate change are put on the negotiating table? Third, has she managed to unearth any economic analysis of the consequences of the 2005 brief which she gave to Mr. Mandelson or is that as hard to come by as figures for the impact of the current proposals?

The answer to these questions is obvious. Nothing has been done. For all the Minister's talk in this House, via parliamentary questions and statements, about groups of five, seven, 14 or 20 being aligned with her in terms of opposition, she and her colleagues in the Council of Ministers have not succeeded in reining in the Commissioner for Trade, Mr. Mandelson. That is a political failure from which she cannot hide.

The consequences for Ireland of the 2005 decision have never been laid before the House by the Minister. I am appalled that she has done no homework on these matters and equally appalled that she finds some type of high moral ground in the 2005 brief. That brief mandated Mr. Mandelson to offer tariff cuts of 50% to 60% on beef, 35% to 50% on pigmeat and poultry, and 50% on butter and skimmed milk powder. It raises questions about the Minister's judgment that she could find comfort in this sell-out. We can come to only one conclusion from her apparent inability to do anything even though what is now on the table is substantially worse than what was offered in 2005. It is blatantly obvious why she has failed to publish a sectoral analysis. She knows the consequences and hopes to run from the problem in a reshuffle. There are shades here of the actions of the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Martin, in regard to the nursing home scandal.

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