Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are significant concerns about this deal. Beef farmers are caught in a bind given the way factories have manipulated the situation. Some of that has been highlighted recently through news of beef barons who do not even pay tax while the rest of us must. Beef farmers will be caught by Brexit. We have little control over those issues. Our Government has shown itself to be very ineffectual in respect of the way factories have been operating. With Brexit, it is a case of wait and see and trying to mitigate the damage it will cause. We are all on board with that.

The Mercosur trade deal has been in the making for 20 years and the Minister said it is not a done deal. It had better not be a done deal because farmers in my part of the country experienced the sellout of the sugar beet industry under previous Governments due to international trade deals. Is the beef industry going to go the same way? The truth, which the Minister knows as well as I do, is that beef farmers are hanging on by their fingertips.

I will focus on economic, environmental and human rights issues. Regarding environmental matters, we know what is happening in those countries. We have signed up to the Paris Agreement. The EU and the Government are talking out of both sides of their mouths if they sign up to this deal as it is. We cannot say we are going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and import beef from the far side of the world. It is the same as shifting ice to the North Pole where they do not need it. We use only 10% of what we produce. A total of 90% is exported and that is good and must continue. How will the EU police what is happening in the likes of Brazil where criminal gangs are clearing people off lands to make way for beef barons to take over? How will the environmental standards in Brazil be policed when the few that exist are totally ignored?

I read Commissioner Hogan's article in The Irish Timeslast Friday where he briefly mentioned labour and environmental protection but did not go on to say how these would be protected. Brazil's president is one of the most authoritarian and right-wing people in the world. How will the workers in the beef industry and farm workers be protected? They will not be protected because there is no means of protecting them and we are adding to their exploitation by facilitating this so I want the Minister to address this issue. Has she put this to the European Commission and colleagues in Europe regarding the protection of the environment in South America and the rainforest and the protection of agricultural workers, including those in the beef producing countries? Those workers have no protection whatsoever and if we allow this deal to go through, matters will get even worse. Could the Minister address those issues? We have signed up to the Paris Agreement and are asking farmers in this country to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This House has rightly declared a climate emergency but we cannot do that and engage in deals such as this, which will cause problems and create even more emissions.

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