Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the terrible impact low beef prices are having on the incomes of our beef farmers. I really hope we will see prices rise in the next few weeks, at least to the European average which they had been at previously. The Deputy will know the Teagasc farm report shows that farmers’ incomes fell precipitously in 2018 and while they recovered a bit in 2019, they have not recovered fully by any means. To answer the Deputy’s question, the reason we allow the import of food from other countries is that we are part of the European Union. We have a Single Market with the rest of the European Union. The Union has trade deals with other parts of the world which allow goods to be imported and exported. By and large, as a country, we gain overwhelmingly from that.

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