Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Only a number of weeks ago, I spoke in the Chamber about the Mercosur deal and highlighted that prices could fall dramatically. Couple this with the no-deal Brexit and we could be facing even stronger threats to the viability of farming in Ireland. Farmers are seeing that the action they have taken over recent weeks is their only option. They see this dispute as the last stand before their livelihoods are wiped out completely and gone forever. I am also very conscious of the 4,000 workers within the factories who have faced or are facing lay-offs. However, if we are to be honest, it is not fair that the factories are using factory workers as pawns to turn communities against each other, when all the farmers want is a fair price for their product, as we have heard many times.

On a point that nobody has hit upon today, the highest rate of suicide in Ireland is among those aged 45 to 54. We know anecdotally that many farmers have taken their lives in recent years and we know that economic desperation kills.

There is an escalating and basic point that people are not seeing. Factories need farmers' products, workers need to work and farmers need to produce beef to sell it. The only solution is to sit down and to talk honestly. I recognise that some, if very little, progress has been made but, for many, it is simply not enough. As has been brought up many times in the House, and if Members will pardon the pun, the main beef is the price that farmers are getting paid. The product we have in Ireland is unique and is one of the best in the world. Why should we be penalised?

The overall objective is to ensure sustainability of livelihoods for everyone involved. Without proper dialogue and discussion by all stakeholders, we could see another situation like the loss of the Mallow beet factory or the fertiliser industry in Cobh. Surely nobody wants to see the beef industry going in the same direction. I appeal for everybody to sit down and to be honest. It is time the Government treated the farming industry, the families and the communities they support, as well as the workers, with honesty. If there are cartels, collusion or fraud, now is the time to stamp it out. Do not let these families be cast aside and left alone to die under the grass because there will not be cattle there to eat it, only themselves.

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