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

The consensus among those engaged in political debate on the budget is that it has been unimaginative and is going nowhere. It is a steady-as-she-goes kind of budget which gives a little to everybody but will not make a difference to anyone. Those are the main criticisms that most people are making of the budget.

I have been looking extensively at agriculture in the past couple of days. Most of the farming organisations and all the political parties wanted funding for the areas of natural constraint scheme restored to its pre-2008 level. While I acknowledge that €25 million was allocated for this purpose in the budget, I look forward to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Michael Creed, informing the House as to how exactly this sum will be spent. I understand the Minister will speak later and I hope he will enlighten us on this issue.

We hope the areas of greatest constraint will receive most money and the designation in respect of mountain type land will be maintained. The budget was more than disappointing in regard to agriculture. We hoped some provision would be made for the suckler cow element of the beef data genomics scheme. The suckler cow payment was abolished many years ago and replaced with the beef data genomics scheme, which does not provide anything for producers of weanling calves, particularly in the west. This is the poorest part of the beef sector.

The sheep welfare scheme was introduced last year with a €25 million budget. This year, the budget for the scheme has been reduced to €20 million. While I acknowledge the underspend of €5 million in the scheme last year, most of the farm organisations wanted this money recouped and redistributed among sheep farmers. Not only has this not been done, but funding for the scheme in 2018 has been reduced. Sinn Féin's alternative budget proposes a €5 per ewe increase in payments under the sheep welfare scheme. Unfortunately, the Government did not take this option.

Much has been said about what the Government is doing to provide loans, particularly for small and medium enterprises and the agrifood sector. We hear that a pot of €300 million will be available for loans, with a €25 million loan fund to be provided specifically for agriculture. We are informed the main advantage of the fund will be that loans will be available at low interest rates. People must apply to the main banks for a loan. These banks are owned by the State which bailed them out nearly ten years ago. They are operating in the fastest growing economy in Europe, yet the Government has been forced to intervene and provide money to enable a growth sector of the economy to leverage loans from them. The issue is that the failure of banking policy in the past ten years has brought us to a position where adequate credit is not available to any sector of the economy and certainly not at a reasonable interest rate.

Interest rates across the entire Irish economy are almost double what they are in every other European economy. We must acknowledge this and the Government needs to examine it closely. Vulture funds are also buying up many of the loans in question and selling people short. This situation must be addressed.

All of this, including how these loans have been proposed as a solution, points to the problem that the Government does not have a long-term strategy for the agriculture sector. Food Harvest 2020 is concerned with the Government going around the world and finding new markets for our products and getting more Irish beef, lamb and dairy into various countries. The problem is that it is all at the low end of the price scale. We need to develop an agricultural economy that focuses on premium prices for the premium products that we produce. The Government does not have a strategy in that regard but there needs to be a plan for the agriculture sector's future.

For everything that is produced in our economy now compared with 30 or 40 years ago, the labour input has grown much smaller, as recognised in the agriculture sector. Forty years ago, a 200-acre farm would have had several people working on it and drawing an income from it. The farm's produce would have gone to meat or dairy processing plants, which employed multiples of the number they employ today. The labour input is much smaller, yet the taxes the Government continues to take from them are mainly focused on the labour aspect. That is a problem not just for Ireland, but for every economy and we must try to deal with it. It is not dealt with in this budget. Instead, labour is still considered the key source of the taxation that is required to provide services for people.

Whether one is to the right or left of centre or in the imaginary centre that does not exist at all, everyone must try to resolve this issue. Society needs quality food and services. To have them, we need a Government that has the resources to provide them, but the Government cannot do so until we invest in them. A budget is a time for people to look to and build for the future but that future can only be realised if there is investment now. This budget fails that key test. It makes no investment in the agriculture sector or any other sector.

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