Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I said earlier, I do not believe we have a deal. We have the outline of an arrangement that must be given legal effect. When we ultimately have a deal, it will be a decision for the Oireachtas at that stage. My responsibility is to ensure that in that intervening period, we work with like-minded people and use the institutions of the European Union and the State to ensure we get to a point where we thwart, diminish and frustrate the ambition contained in that headline agreement so as to secure the best possible deal. The best possible deal would bring a levelling of the playing pitch in order that the standards alluded to by the Deputy, including those pertaining to the environmental, traceability and veterinary medicine, would be the same as those applied to the product that is coming in to compete with us on EU supermarket shelves. This is the challenge.

In the intervening period we will of course do an appropriate assessment of the deal, investigating not only its economic impact but its environmental effect. There is opportunity in that space to ensure the legal document ultimately drafted protects our farmers from unfair trade. The ultimate ambition is to have fair trade and in the context of that fair trade, if we are not fighting with one hand behind our backs, our producers can compete with anybody. I know that from the privilege I have had working on trade missions with people in the industry. Our product is rightly respected as a high-value sustainable product, and it is in our long-term best interests to keep embracing that model of production.

The Taoiseach has been quite frank about this. If we find with our assessment that the deal is not in our interests, we will try to forge alliances with others to ensure we can meet the required threshold for a qualified majority vote, QMV, at Council level. In the interim, we must do the assessment and look at the detail of the outline agreement to see how we can try to influence that in the intervening period to deliver a legal text that would protect our interests and those of beef farmers in particular. There are 100,000 family farms - not 80,000 - deriving some element of their income from the beef sector. The critical mass of the Irish agricultural sector is involved with beef production. People are also affected in the poultry, pork and dairy sectors, although some of these are affected in a positive sense. The real exposure is to the beef sector.

As the Taoiseach has said, we will do the assessment and take things from there. In due course it will be an issue for the Council of Ministers approval process, the European Parliament and member states. I hope the Deputy and I will be Members of this House at that stage but it is some distance away.

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