Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ó Cuív for giving us the opportunity to discuss this crisis facing the Irish beef industry this evening. Imagine a situation in any other sector of the economy in which the average income had fallen by between 13% and 22%, in which that frame was from just over €9,500 to €15,000, in which prices were down between 15% and 20% in one year, and in which the primary producer was taking a loss of €300 per head on the primary input. It would be a crisis and there would be an outcry. Instead, what do we get? The Government amendment this evening is as watery as the Titanic. It talks about the importance of the beef sector to the economy - lovely motherhood and apple pie stuff. The amendment then says the Government has set up a round table - happy days. Those at the round table are talking while this crisis is happening on the ground and the quality of supply and the economics of the industry are literally going through the floor. Meanwhile, the Government has set up a round table. The Government set up a "Beef Pricewatch" online tool to make price information more accessible. That is absolutely no good to farmers with a limited choice of where to send their animals, when the price differences are so small that the cost of transporting animals across the country, which has been jacked up in recent times, will obliterate any price difference.

The beef round table should be asking why those prices are the same and why there is such a small disparity between prices. Is that kind of issue being put to the producers? It is probably not being put to them because this is a Government that kowtows to the big industry players - no offence to the Minister of State - and forgets the producer and the place of the producer in the important chain of our food and beef industries. The same approach is being adopted by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation with regard to the Competition and Consumer Protection Bill. Amendments that tried to strengthen protection for the primary producer - the farmer - against the might of big grocery multiples were voted down. The Minister's view was "Let them eat cake. Let the market decide." This seems to be what the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine is intent on doing here in respect of the beef market.

We must inject urgency and then action into this debate. Farmers are key to all of this, because this element seems to have been forgotten by the Department in respect of the beef round table. If the Minister of State has confidence in the beef round table, he will commit to the establishment of an independent regulator who will have the power to say who is wrong here and to challenge the factories and the prices they are paying.

We also need a discussion about our market access policies. There is no sense in highlighting the fact that the Minister has given Bord Bia €500,000 to expand and target the promotion of Irish beef. For a start, that is a drop in the ocean and, frankly, what is Bord Bia doing with it when prices for consumers have gone up in supermarkets across the UK but prices for producers have gone way down? The demand is there. People want Irish beef, and to know that it is Irish beef, but the people who producing it are not getting paid enough and that is where the Government is continuing to stick its head in the sand. We will very quickly end up in a situation in which we will not have the produce and stock because so many people are getting out of it. So many people are deciding that this is not a space they want to be in and to put their families into. Meanwhile, the Government has a round table - well, good luck with that.

We need a Minister who is a Minister and who is not on a glory tour of the world before he moves to his next Ministry. We need a Minister who actually has the courage to challenge the beef industry and to say to it that at the end of the day it is dependent on the primary producer and it must treat that primary producer with respect, not just with regard to price but with regard to the quality of stock, the input and the way it deals with him or her. We do not have that relationship at the moment. We have a relationship that puts the industry first and the farmer very much second and last in line, and that is across a range of Government policies in a range of different areas in the Department. It cannot last.

Surely, at a time of collapsing beef prices, there should be some kind of emergency plan in terms of income? Instead we have seen the farm assist scheme restricted and cracks beginning to emerge in the GLAS programme in the past week, which have been highlighted by Deputy Ó Cuív. In the amendment, the Government is highlighting it as a significant investment for the lifetime of the rural development programme, but we have seen that there are so many restrictions around it that many rural farmers will not actually get into it. What specific initiatives will there be for beef farmers? What specific initiatives will there be to assist with the price of stock, which is what we are discussing here tonight?

The Government talks about the beef genomics and beef data schemes and the beef technology adoption programme, all of which are welcome and significant. However, at the end of the day, when farmers are leaving the beef market, that is no good to anybody. When they are not getting the price for their stock and are trading at a loss of €300 per head, that is no good to anybody. That will not put bread on the table.

Again, we are looking at market access areas. Deputy Ó Cuív has already raised the area of live exports. We seem to have lost the hunger for promoting that. I do not know what will happen in the Department after July, but please give us a Minister with hunger who actually cares about the primary producer and a Government policy that cares for the primary producers in all other Departments. We will get an indication of that next week in the House when the Competition and Consumer Protection Bill is debated on Report Stage and when we will move the amendments we moved on Committee Stage that seek to protect the producer. We will challenge the entire House to debate them and to go and vote either way. Hopefully, Members will decide to protect the producer.

There is no more time for talking, round tables, or, in the words of the amendment, "bringing together farm organisations, beef processors and relevant State agencies to discuss recent challenges." The Government put that up as the first line in its amendment as a significant achievement. They should be coming together anyway. There should be regular dialogue anyway, but it seems that this is a sudden big achievement on the part of the Government when it is included in the first line of the amendment. We need urgency, because it is not there. If anything comes out of these two nights, if urgency is injected into this situation and if the reality of the situation is impressed upon the Department, it will have been successful. I know all the Government Deputies will come in here tomorrow night, troop in behind this amendment and cheer the Minister of State on, but what happens at 9.10 p.m. tomorrow will make no difference to the beef farmers of this country, who will still face huge challenges and the prospect of possibly having to leave the industry. Where will that leave us?

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