Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies McConalogue and Cahill for giving way to let me ask a few questions. What is wrong when a sector is full of part-time farmers who must subsidise their income with income from off-farm jobs and EU payments and who still lose money year after year and yet the larger companies profit endlessly? Why is Bord Bia adopting a policy of Origin Ireland that in the event of a hard Brexit would favour processors, compared with live exports, that will avail of a lower tariff when for years in the past live exports to the UK were effectively prohibited by nomad cattle designation? The closure of Irish meat plants is deliberately being done as part of the processors' Brexit exit strategy.

To follow up on what Deputy O'Keeffe has said, could the Minister engage with the MII - I am not seeking new discussions - to get its members to recognise the new and the only beef producers organisations that are in place so as to put trust and faith back into the sector? That has been lost. If the Minister was to make that call to encourage it to meet with the new organisation, we could help move people away from picket lines.

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