Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

It is 25 days since the election, yet there is no Government with a mandate in this State. This is a scandalous situation. The urgency in the voices of all Deputies before the general election has been replaced by a political establishment that is now an urgency-free zone. It appears that the political establishment is ambling along as if there were no rush whatsoever regarding the crises relating to housing, health, crime, transport and the coronavirus. We are being represented at European Council meetings by a Government that was pushed out of office by the people. The Dáil is not scheduled to sit again until 19 March, which is two weeks away. For most people, that is the length of a summer holiday. It is incredible.

During the last hiatus of the Dáil in 2016, the House was allowed to function at some level. A housing committee was constituted. This was a good idea, and the committee did good work. It is incredible that, right now, every journalist in the country is able to ask questions of the Tánaiste, Ministers and the Taoiseach, yet Deputies with a fresh mandate are not allowed to ask questions of those individuals. The European Council is just another example of that.

The headline issue for the European Council meeting was obviously the super-sized Brexit hole in the budget. A chasm of €75 billion now exists. This is now likely to hurt many sectors, regions and policy ambitions within the EU. One of the sectors most under pressure in Ireland is that which relates to farming. We know already that farmers have been radically hit by a dysfunctional beef market in Ireland. Beef barons are allowed to earn hundreds of millions of euro virtually tax-free, yet the farmers are expected to bring their beef to the factory gates at prices below the cost of production. The average farmer in this State is earning between €8,000 and €10,000. That is less than the pension or welfare. It is an unbelievable figure for a man or woman working approximately 50 hours per week. The income is at this level only because there are subsidies in place. Teagasc estimates that about one third of farmers in the State are making a living from farming. Another third are making a living only because someone else in the household is working off the farm. A full third of farmers are not making a living at all and have either been pushed into poverty or radical debt. The subsidy makes up in the region of 140% of the income of the farmers. If it was taken away, many farmers would be earning incomes in minus figures. In the previous Dáil, we in Aontú sought to bring about a ban on the below-cost sale of beef in order to fix this dysfunctional market. We will do so again in the current Dáil at the earliest opportunity. There is a need for the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to be properly resourced in order that it can tackle the oligopoly that exists in the sector.

The problem is that there is a massive gap in the EU budget which is likely to be filled using cuts in certain areas or increases in national budgets. Obviously, the CAP is coming under fierce pressure. My concern, given that the negotiation has to be completed by the end of the year, is that this country will come under radical pressure with regard to the CAP budget. If that budget decreases significantly at the same time as farmers throughout the country are suffering at such a rate, it will lead only to further poverty and difficulties. The number of farmers in this State is actually very low. There are only about 130,000 farmers operating here at present. Every year, we see that number decrease further.

The other point of pressure on the Government is the contribution the State makes to the budget of the EU. It is reckoned that approximately €720 million was contributed by this State to the European budget last year. It seems as if the Government is already agreeing to a doubling of that amount. There is an opportunity cost if that is the case because the money has to come from somewhere. Given the crises in housing and health, it is very difficult to see where the budget will come from.

I wish to talk about climate change. Climate change is by far one of the most significant challenges the planet faces. It is incredible that, despite all the green-washing within the establishment, this State is at the bottom of the list when it comes to climate amelioration policies and implementation. It is amazing that, at these types of Council meetings, Ireland is doing its best to talk up EU decisions relating to climate change amelioration and the economic changes necessary in this regard when it will fail in it comes to implementing the latter at home. This has the potential to result in the accrual of massive fines for Ireland.

I wish to speak about a number of issues that were not included on the agenda at the recent European Council meeting. One of these relates to how the EU is to go forward. The Union has probably experienced one of the most significant existential crises in recent times. Losing a significant member such as Britain should have led to some self-examination within the EU. However, there appears to be absolutely no introspection within the Union at all. I am firmly of the belief that the biggest challenge to the EU currently is more EU. Federalists and militarists are causing significant damage to the EU project. There seems to be no push-back whatsoever from our Government in that regard. The EU should be a democratic partnership of nation states working together economically on the big-ticket issues, the issues that individual states cannot deal with, such as climate change. There needs to be some flexibility within the EU to allow for democracies to decide on major issues for themselves also. Decisions made closer to the people they affect are better because people can feed into the decision-making process and hold the decision makers to account. It is a truism that it is impossible for citizens in Ireland to hold decision makers in Brussels or Berlin to account on many issues.

I am amazed that the issue of the coronavirus was not, as far as I am aware, raised to any significant level at the EU Council meeting. It obviously represents a significant crisis internationally. Various countries are approaching it in different ways. Considerable respect is due to all the front-line workers who are currently working to mitigate and reduce the spread of the virus throughout Ireland and the rest of the world. It is significant that different countries are dealing with this in different ways. I would like to find out the influence of the EU regarding how we are approaching coronavirus mitigation. Perhaps the Minister will tell us. In Britain, people who returned from affected areas were told at the very start that they should self-isolate. A different policy was proposed here, namely, that only those who came from affected areas and were experiencing symptoms should self-isolate and that the remainder should go on as normal. Other countries are significantly restricting travel from countries that are affected but obviously Ireland is not. From what the Minister for Health has stated, I understand that one of the reasons Ireland is not doing this is because of the free movement of people within the EU. I would like clarification on whether the EU is directing that element of our policy on mitigating against the spread of the coronavirus.

It seems strange that we have a Minister telling Irish people not to go to the infected areas in Italy, while also saying he will not tell people from the affected areas in Italy not to come to Ireland. It is important to know whether Ireland, as a European country, has a full armoury of tools to be able to deal with this crisis.

See this speech in context