Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Pringle for sharing time. I support this motion. Last year, I was in Mayo, Roscommon and Galway and walked through fields that were soaked in water. I saw farmers devastated and a gaunt look on people's faces who did not know what they were going to do. Those farmers are still paddling their own canoe and nothing has been done for them. There is plenty of sympathy out there. One sees it everywhere, be it on Facebook or in the Irish Farmers' Journal or whatever paper one reads. Everyone is saying farmers are hard done by but I can tell the House one thing. Sympathy will not solve the problem when the little envelope with the window on it arrives from the merchant looking for the price of the spray or grain or the auctioneers saying they want the price of a bit of rented land. Sympathy will not pay that. Sympathy will not pay the banks. Some farmers, particularly young farmers, have borrowed money to get into the world of farming. It was what they and their fathers believed but, sadly, Governments seem to want to forget about it. Farming is the bad relation at the moment.

Farmers seem to be forgotten in all the different sectors across industry at the moment. We are fighting a battle relating to GLAS. On 31 December 2016, 9,500 farmers, some of whom are tillage farmers, were due to get their GLAS payments but they have not received them. Affected farmers also include beef, dairy and sheep farmers. The sad part is that these farmers are too busy at home trying to cater for their businesses. One does not see them up in Dublin too often for the simple reason that they love the land. They have stayed on the land and want to hand it on but, sadly, Governments forget that this is the way it should be.

The Government amendment is an insult to farmers. Day after day, I have heard the palaver that farmers can borrow money and that the Government will give them money. I spoke to bank managers yesterday who told me they had not even got word of it. It could be next September. In case Ministers or Deputies do not know, one sows the grain in April or May. One is not going to sow it next September. That is when one is supposed to harvest it so one can forget about getting a loan to solve one's problems. It has been said that farmers can get into the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS. TAMS might be great and I have no problem with it but it is a percentage. It might be 40% or 60% but one has got to have a few quid in one's pocket if one is building a shed or whatever one is going to do under TAMS.

The reality is that we are not talking about the whole grain industry. We know there are problems in the whole grain industry in this country and indeed in Europe but that needs to be addressed in a European forum and sorted out with the Council of Ministers. It is well known that a section of farmers have lost their livelihoods and have no income. They got no cheque back from the mill. We need to get that into our heads. They owe money. When one walked in the fields, one walked in water. one could not wear shoes where the combines worked. One had to wear Wellington boots. There was regrowth. There is a bit of green for anyone who does not know but, alas, nobody gives a damn because, sadly, most of this is in the west of Ireland from Donegal, down to Mayo, Roscommon, Galway, Clare, parts of Kerry and the end of Cork. There was a problem in parts of Wexford where the fog was coming in. A small percentage of farmers have been affected but when one is a small farmer, one probably does not really matter. The drive is more to make sure that regardless of the guy in tillage, we give the vulture fund or the bankers as much as we can to plant the west of Ireland, drive the people into the towns and forget about our communities, what we are about and where we were brought up. Then I hear a Minister stand up and say farmers got money early.

However, so did the beef man, so did the sheep man and so did farmers who did not have anything other than cutting a bit of hay - they got their BPS. There has been no special treatment for these tillage farmers so far.

Last night the Minister spoke about the loan and the TAMS, but these people need money to compensate them for what has gone wrong. I recently looked at some departmental records. In one part of a county - perhaps in the Minister's county of Cork - the grain might have been perfect, but in another part of the county it might not have been possible to drive a tractor with twin wheels to put it simply. Alas, it does not seem to matter.

I hope the motion works, but I have been here for two years. I will be very clear and straightforward with the farmers, who I welcome here this evening. Let us be honest with them, they should not be brought up to the top of the hill and left there on their own. The reality is that sweet damn all has been done following many motions that have been introduced in this Dáil; they have not solved anything. What Deputy Penrose said about the French farmers earlier was right. When the French farmers kick, everyone listens.

We have contacted the MEPs and brought them to the different places. Those MEPs made it clear that Ireland did not make a case to Europe for our problem. If we do not ask, we will never get. We saw it previously with different problems - we cannot ask those in Europe about slurry, we cannot ask them about the problems with the pigs at the moment and we cannot ask them about this, that and the other. I ask them about the forgotten farmer. I heard last night that the IFA was advised that Europe would not allow it. I have a letter stating that it would allow it. If we do not ask, we are going nowhere. If we are not going to help these farmers, let us be honest and straightforward about it. Looking to 2025, there is an onus on us to ensure the small farmers matter because they are Irish people and we should be proud of them.

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