Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I was away for the past two and half weeks, unfortunately. However, I was watching things from afar. The beef crisis has been looming for some time. When I was agriculture spokesman, I argued that farming was in a situation where farmers were losing money. If we were to look at the accounts of many farmers, minus the fixed grant payments, such as GLAS, the basic payment and the area of natural constraint, ANC, payment, we would find that those farmers are losing money farming. What has been going on for some time but what has been totally exacerbated this year is the reality that the more and the harder a person farms, the less money that he or she makes. A minimalist approach with minimalist inputs is the most profitable way of farming. The farming industry has been so structured for some time but the situation has been completely exacerbated by the collapse in the beef price this year. Such an industry is not structured correctly. We need to face up to this issue at national level and examine the way we are assisting farming at EU level. The collapse in the beef price brought the more intensive farmers to a total crisis this year. However, to state that this pattern has not been there for some time, particularly for farmers in the less advantaged areas, would be to ignore the reality that is visible in the accounts of farmers.

A second and valid issue concerns profit-taking in the sector. Deputies will remember when we did a major analysis of this subject in the agriculture committee. We looked at the retail sector, in particular. Work was going on in France and I produced a paper on this issue, which proved to be of great interest to the European Commission at a time. That paper examined the need to start finding out who was making what out of the farming industry. The one thing we found out, because it was easy enough to measure, was that out of the price paid for a litre of milk in a shop, the percentage going to the farmer dropped by 10% in the previous 11 years. It can be taken that the same is happening with other parts of our agriculture. However, it is much harder to measure the impact in respect of meat than milk because that is sold the next day. We really need to start to analyse this issue. Europe stated that it is interested. We need to deal with the cartels, and that involves not only the factories but the retailers.

Some evidence shows that the retailers are also manipulating the price and we need to deal with this issue. We need to examine it very carefully. An issue that needs to be examined at EU level is the idea that the retailers, who are small in number, and the factories are hugely powerful and can negotiate price but the farmers and other primary producers, who are hugely weak on an individual basis, cannot collectively negotiate price. If this is what competition law means, then competition law is an ass and it is time Europe faced up to it.

I used to often say when we were debating this issue that the problem of primary producers is not unique to Ireland. We all know about fair trade coffee, and we understand it perfectly well. Let us remember that none of us can survive without eating. We can do without many things in life, and some of us could even survive without an iPhone although it would be hard, but we cannot survive without eating. Food and drink are absolutely fundamental. The reality is that primary producers throughout the world are getting pressurised into taking uneconomical prices. I know about producer groups and all the rest. They are very handy and will work for some of the bigger players but for many smaller farmers represented on the backbenches by me, Deputy Scanlon and others they are not as good as farm organisations and other representative bodies being able to negotiate. Would it upset the entire free market of the European Union? I do not believe it would. Would it bring a bit of justice? Yes, I believe it would. We need a lot of change.

The motion also refers to general rural issues. I will mention a few topics very briefly. There is talk of a carbon tax in areas where the State underspends significantly per capitaon public transport. The per capita spend in the capital city on buses is three times that of rural areas. The fares in rural areas are twice those of the cities. On the same wages, our taxes subsidise urban transport. I am not complaining about this as I use urban transport but we need equality and we will have to stand up and get it.

Something that slipped through, and perhaps some of us did not see it coming, is that if somebody is building a rural house 100 m away from the public water supply, he or she is no longer allowed to put the pipe in and Uisce Éireann will charge $20,000 - sorry €20,000-----

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