Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak yet again on an issue that has adversely affected the tillage farmers in my constituency of Cork South West. Some of those farmers are in the House today. I welcome them and acknowledge their presence.

I am very proud of my party, Fianna Fáil, which has tabled this motion this evening and which always stands by the farmer. I would also like to acknowledge the great work done by my colleagues, Deputies Charlie McConalogue and Jackie Cahill in the field of agriculture, excuse the pun.

As the Minister knows, the price of tillage grain has not been good for some time. In west Cork, farmers also had to contend with salt being blown in from the sea which resulted in many crops having to be replanted. We also had an extremely wet autumn in 2016. I know the Minister is good at what he does but even I do not expect him to be able to control the weather. What I do expect from him, however, is an appropriate reaction to events that are outside everyone's control, such as the effects of bad weather on farmers' lives. I have had grown men and women in my office who were close to tears because of the loss of their tillage crops.

I, along with my Fianna Fáil colleagues, have been highlighting tillage failure since the ploughing championships last September. The agriloan offered is not good enough. A loan is a loan and must be paid back.

The problems faced by tillage farmers have now escalated, and the providers of seeds and fertilisers seek to be paid for their products and rightly so. The Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which is made up of members of all parties, including the Minister's, and Independent Deputies, recognised the need to compensate these farmers. I respectfully ask the Minister to take note of this. I also ask the Minister to open as soon as possible the TAMS investment tillage scheme, which the Government committed to commence in autumn 2016. I acknowledge the Minister of State, Deputy Doyle, spoke about it earlier and said it would open shortly. I ask the Government to please keep its word on it this time.

A precedent was set by my party, Fianna Fáil, when in 2010 under the then Minister, Deputy Brendan Smith, we established an aid scheme for potato and vegetable crops damaged in the severe frost of that year. There was an €86 million underspend in the budget of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in 2016 and there was also an underspend arising from the rural development schemes. In view of this underspend surely there must be money at the Minister's disposal to help these farmers. I ask the Minister, Deputy Creed, to please compensate the affected tillage farmers in my constituency of Cork South West. Please give them the chance to stay afloat and stay in business, and please end the tremendous pressure they and their families are enduring.

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