Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)

I move:

"That Dáil Éireann:

notes the potential and importance of agriculture to the Irish economy and in particular to support the implementation of Food Harvest 2020 and recognises that:

— agriculture and the agri-food sector is Ireland's most important indigenous industry and will play a central part in job creation and our export led recovery;

— the agriculture industry in Ireland has an annual output of approximately €22 billion accounting for more than 6% of GDP;

— industry exports are currently almost €8 billion on an annual basis with food and drink exports going to more than 160 countries;

— a total of more than 139,000 people are employed in the production of agri-food and fisheries products, which is approximately 7.5% of national employment;

— this sector supports 128,000 family farms and 600 food and drinks firms;

— a number of countries in Europe, including Ireland, narrowly missed exceeding their milk quota this year while other countries in Europe were 30% under quota this year;

— a political solution must be found to allow the expansion of the dairy industry pre-2015; and

— Irish interests must be protected in discussions on the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, post 2013 and in the Mercado Común del Sur, Mercosur, talks;

and calls on the Government to:

— negotiate a Europe wide quota rather than a national quota to allow for the orderly expansion of the dairy industry in Ireland between now and the ending of milk quotas in 2015;

— negotiate changes to the superlevy system so that the levy is only applied where the farmer, the co-op, the country and Europe has exceeded the quota;

— adopt a strong and unequivocal stance at the Mercosur talks to ensure the protection of the Irish beef industry;

— ensure the protection and continuation of a strong decoupled direct payments system in negotiations on the CAP post 2013;

— maintain the Agri-Environment Options Scheme as a major support for environmental farming;

— recognise the importance of the western counties to farming and provide greater support to small and medium sized farms;

— pursue the development of food labelling and traceability;

— ensure that State agencies actively support the further development of the indigenous agri-food sector; and

— enact the fair trade legislation as committed to in the Programme for Government banning unfair trading practices in the retail sector."

I wish to share time with Deputies Charlie McConalogue and Robert Troy with the agreement of the House.

See this speech in context