Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has been a regular visitor to Cavan-Monaghan and will realise and appreciate the pressures that the agricultural sector is under and how much we depend on it. The almost 1 million suckler cow herd is pivotal to supporting the local economy in rural Ireland and Cavan-Monaghan is no different. Every €1 support to suckler farmers generates over €4 of economic activity in rural areas and should not be under-estimated. Suckler farm families underpin annual Irish beef exports worth €2.5 billion. However, suckler farmers' average incomes are below €13,000 and they are fully dependent on CAP supports to maintain their livelihoods.

The Government has refused at every point to examine all options to introduce a €200 payment per suckler cow in the current and future CAP. Fianna Fáil and Deputy McConalogue have been instrumental in the political campaign for this key policy. We will continue to push for its delivery. I compliment my colleague on his motion urging the Minister to review the current underspend accruing across several areas in the 2014-2020 rural development programme scheme and reporting back to the Oireachtas within two months with a roadmap towards meeting those targets as the underspend could be well utilised for the suckler and other vulnerable sectors in agriculture.

The underspend in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has soared, as the Minister will be aware, to €186 million over the past two years while several of the 2014-2020 rural development programme, RDP, schemes are now on course to underspend significantly. Fianna Fáil has exposed how the current green, low-carbon, agri-environment scheme, GLAS, which we all have heard talked about on many occasions in this Chamber, is on track to leave farmers missing out on payments of over €400 million up until 2020. It is an appalling situation, given the severe cashflow crisis that is facing farmers on a daily basis. Such moneys are needed to spend in the current RDP window.

I need not re-emphasise how Cavan-Monaghan is so dependent on this sector and with Brexit looming large and darkly across that sector too, one area on which the Minister needs to focus his attentions is the suckler farmers' income. The Government must immediately seek EU recognition of these and request funding supports, including CAP, to support the market disturbances funds.

I would ask the Minister to support this practical motion which will deliver for farmers on the ground. The Minister has the money, as he will be aware, in the Department. There are underspends in many of the different areas. Here is an opportunity. It is a reasonable, practical measure that the Minister can put in place and I would hope that he would support it.

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