Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Any Mercosur type deal agreed by this Government will have devastating consequences for Irish farmers, whether beef, dairy, poultry or pig. Today, over 2,000 farmers from west Cork and throughout the country, led by the Irish Beef Plan movement, protested outside the Dáil. Most of them left their wellingtons behind them because many beef farmers know it is all over because the Government has sold them down the swanny and they are going down the tubes. The Government should be proud of itself.

Those farmers are angry because they have listened to Ministers and the Taoiseach finding a nice way out of saying they are backing this deal in the past week. There are 80,000 beef farmers, each of whom spends €30,000 in the local economy. The loss of that spend in local villages will lead to further closures of shops, pubs and schools in rural Ireland.

This Government has stood idly by while towns and villages have died before our eyes. The €100 million to support beef farmers that was announced before the local and European elections was a sop to get a few people elected. It looks as if the devil is in the detail because no one knows who is entitled to that money. The Beef Plan Movement must play a big part in this with other farm organisations. They were united outside the gates of Dáil Éireann today. I call on the Irish Farmers Association, IFA, the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association, ICSA, and the Beef Plan Movement to stand together and stop rotten beef from coming into this country. Stop Fine Gael selling us down the swanny one more time.

The only way the 2,000 people who were outside the gates of Leinster House today feel there is a way forward is if this Government is booted out. I call on my Fianna Fáil colleagues to bring this Government down. We must bring it down if we are to save rural Ireland and the beef farmers in this country.

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