Martin Ferris (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I knew on the completion of the latest negotiations and the press releases that followed that the assumption of an agreement was false. It was false because the talks did not deal with the main issue, namely, the base price. We would not have a beef industry without beef and suckler farmers. We would not have all of those people employed in the industry. How can farmers continue to produce beef below cost?

How can they sustain that? How can they keep that going? I cannot understand for the life of me how farming organisations came out and were half-welcoming what was agreed. It was a false negotiation. The negotiations have to be about price. If it was not about production price, it meant absolutely nothing. It meant nothing to the people in the west of Ireland with 20 suckler cows and who are trying to rear good beef cattle: it meant nothing to them because they are producing below cost.

There is a situation where the multiples and the cartels are dictating the negotiations and terrorising farmers by telling them they would get injunctions and take their land. That is what they have been propagating and putting out there. I am told the same cartels employed for very low wages people who are non-Irish nationals and not alone do they employ them but they house them and charge them €100 a week for a bed in a house that they share with somebody else. These are the people we are talking about, these people who control the whole industry and by extension have influence over the political system in the State, and nothing is being done about it.

It was a shameful negotiation. I fully support the independent farmers who have picketed and continue to picket. I will be there with them because they are fighting to survive and fighting for their livelihoods. They have been neglected and betrayed by those who represent them at certain levels.

How do we deal with it? We deal with the cartels, with the people who take a quarter for themselves and allow nothing to go back to the producers. We deal with the fact that while we know what the processors pay for cattle, we do not know what they get from the big multiple retailers. A Bill is being brought forward by Deputy Stanley to try to address that issue. It will be very interesting see how many Deputies in this House, in particular Government Deputies, will back it. The Bill will ensure processors have to show what they are getting for beef and what the big retail units are paying for it. We know what the consumer pays for it and we know what the producer gets for it, but we do not know what happens inbetween. We also need an investigation into the abuse of workers by these cartels.

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