Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It seems to me the attitude of the Government and of the Minister, Deputy Coveney, to farm families in the west, where I come from, is "live horse, get grass". We have been waiting a long time for things to improve, but the longer we wait the worse it seems to get for most of us.

Many members of the Government will have realised during the general election campaign just how angry people were. Fine Gael and Labour Party people went around the doorsteps telling us in the Border counties and the west to keep the recovery going. In that part of the world, however, we have seen very little sign of recovery. We are the first to feel the downturn when things are bad, and the last to see any recovery. We have seen no sign of any recovery as yet.

I sometimes wonder about the policy the Government is pursuing and what its aim is. What does the Minister think when he hears farmers saying they cannot survive? What does he say about that at the Cabinet table? Does the Minister plan to leave small farmers to sink or swim? Is it his plan to let them sink in order that we will be left with that magic number, the much heralded 20,000 viable farmers left in Ireland? Many people on small farms in the area where I come from are encouraged to get off-farm work, but there are no such jobs.

The last lifeline for many struggling small farmers was taken when the farm assist benefit was cut to the extent that most people lost that payment. At the time, the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, claimed there was no cut to core social welfare payments. Replacing farm assist with jobseeker’s allowance would have been funny if it were not so tragic for the small farmer in the west. Jobseeking, by the standards of the Department of Social Protection, is not compatible with farming. Being available for work, by the standards of the Department of Social Protection, does not acknowledge the position of the small farmer struggling to make enough from his or her holding to survive. They need the safety net provided by the farm assist payment.

The stress which small farmers are under financially is exacerbated by the stress they are now under due to inspections. The inspection regime is run in such a way as to suggest that it is not about improving standards or modifying behaviour for the better, but to intimidate and discourage farmers. Inspections should not resemble a police raid. No one is saying standards should not be maintained or that anyone should be allowed to lower the high standards of Irish farming. However, a more co-operative and constructive regime would benefit everyone. For some reason, the Minister and his Department prefer the heavy hand to the helping hand. I hope this issue is dealt with in the current negotiations about Government formation. Small farmers fear the call that a departmental inspection will be carried out on their farms.

The Minister needs to defend the most important people, the ones who produce the goods. The beef industry has become monopolised and industrialised with farmers penalised on the basis of spurious conditions and specifications set by the beef factories. Beef farmers have to dance to the tune of weight restrictions, number of movements and age of cattle. We are told this regime is consumer-led but I have yet to find a beef consumer in Ballymun or Berlin who knows or cares whether an animal was 34 or 36 months old or whether it was moved three or four times in its lifetime. What consumers want to know is that an animal was grass-fed, roaming free and not riddled with hormones. That is what Irish farmers offer, namely, the highest quality beef. The way the factories manipulate the market with their own feed lots, however, is not fair or transparent. It goes against the image we portray across the world. However, it is the reality of the way beef has been reared until it reaches the farm gate.

What is the Government’s approach to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP? So far, it has been very much a lapdog approach, meaning we do not even know what is being negotiated on our behalf. The repercussions for Ireland could be enormous. Documents leaked by Greenpeace last week indicate the US is making serious demands regarding lowering standards of protection for the environment and public health. These leaks show that the precautionary principle maintained by the European Union, which ensures a product must be proved safe before it can be released on the market, is not being defended. We are in danger of introducing the US version, namely, that one has to prove a product is dangerous to take it off the market. In other words, there is pressure from the US to turn our precautionary principle on its head. The EU has higher trade protection standards in health, human, animal and plant life when compared with the US. Big business in the US is trying to reduce these regulations while the EU remains mute, however. The leaks show the US side wants to be able to scrap existing EU rules in areas such as food labelling or the approval of dangerous chemicals. The US describes these as barriers to free trade, while most of us recognise they are dangers to human health.

The selling point and the main image of our agrifood across the world is that it is clean and green. That is our claim to fame on international markets. To keep our food clean and green, however, we have to maintain the highest standards. According to Greenpeace from the TTIP leaked documents, “The way is being cleared for a race to the bottom in environmental, consumer protection and public health standards”. The US is proposing that the EU would be obliged to inform American industries of any planned regulations in advance while allowing them the same input into the EU regulatory process as European firms. A Greenpeace representative pointed out, “Before the EU could even pass a regulation, it would have to go through a gruelling impact assessment process in which the bloc would have to show interested US parties that no voluntary measures, or less exacting regulatory ones, were possible”.

GM foods could also find a widening window into Europe with the US pushing for a working group to adopt what it calls a “low-level presence initiative”. This would allow the import of cargo containing traces of unauthorised GM strains. The EU currently blocks these because of food safety and cross-pollination concerns.

A Fine Gael Deputy referred earlier to Sinn Féin's wealth tax. Sinn Féin does indeed have a proposal for a wealth tax for those with assets worth in excess of €1 million. Unfortunately, I do not know of any farmers from south Leitrim or west Cavan who have an asset, and most certainly farmland, worth over €1 million. It was Sinn Féin's position that working farmland would be excluded from this tax measure anyway. The measure was targeted at big business with significant shares in and dividends from the agriculture industry. For the Deputies opposite to claim this proposal would have an impact somehow or other on the farming community is an absolute nonsense.

The Minister’s job is to ensure agreements such as TTIP do not damage Ireland. Like the doctor, the Minister must be charged firstly with doing no harm. Is he confident TTIP will do us no harm? Sinn Féin has no such confidence and believes that TTIP will do significant harm to the Irish agriculture sector. No Minister is standing up for rural Ireland or the farmers in County Leitrim that I represent. These are small farmers eking out a living on 30 acres of land with a handful of cows, while trying to rear a family and send their children to school. Those people need protection from big business which is manipulating the markets and destroying their incomes. The Minister needs to stand up firmly and proudly against that particular sector. Who will protect us if the Minister will not?

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