Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank and congratulate the farming community around the country, especially in Kerry, for continuing to work, as it always has in the past, when most other activities are closed down. I am glad that, when we look out the door or go down the road, we are meeting farmers with tractors, jeeps and trailers and that they are continuing to work, carry on and do their bit.

There is another thing I have to say that I have said to other Members in the Chamber. It is widely recognised that there is no excess carbon being emitted, or emissions being created, by farmers now, even though they are working to their maximum as they always have done. People who were focusing their attention on farmers and asking them to reduce the national herd had better start looking elsewhere. Maybe they should look up at the sky on a fine day. We can now see a blue sky from end to end so maybe the planes up there were the cause of the trouble. Maybe other things around the world were causing the trouble because it is not the farmer.

The farmer is in serious trouble. Whether a weanling is to be sold or an animal is going to the factory, farmers are losing between €200 and €300 per head. I ask the Minister to do something about the marts. Every mart, whether in Macroom, Kenmare, Castleisland, Cahersiveen or Dingle, has a capacity to hold maybe 200 or 300 people.

Yet, at present the farmer is being asked to drop his animals off at the gate or maybe the mart manager will come out and buy the cattle with some buyer or whatever. That is not satisfactory. While I recognise that it is important to sell the animals, it is equally important to get a good and fair price. There is no competition in the market now. I am asking the Minister to talk to the mart people, the Irish Farmers Association and everyone involved to see if we could get the marts open in a capacity whereby perhaps 20 buyers could go in with ten sellers at a time. That should surely be possible. I call on the Minister to do that sooner rather than later. If there is no competition - there is none at present between buyers - then farmers will not realise the best price, the price they should be getting.

The question of meat processing plants has been raised here. Some of the meat plants admitted that they had to process Polish beef. At the same time, I know farmers around me everywhere who cannot get their animals into the factory. If they have 20 animals to sell or put through the factory, they have to wait. Maybe the factory will take five or six. They then have to wait weeks and that is costing them.

John Tyson of Tyson Foods in America says he is closing down many of his processing plants. Surely there is an opportunity for us to explore other markets, whether they are west or east of us. Anyway, we have to do something. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has been the Minister all this time. It is him I am asking what can be done. Can he do more for the farmers? How much money was sent back from the beef exceptional aid measure last year? The rules were totally wrong and the regulations meted out to farmers did not allow them to get the money. Many farmers did not access the BEAM at all. Will the Minister address that? The money we are getting from Europe is paltry. They should be doing far more for the farmers.

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