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

For the past four and a half years, I had the privilege of chairing the committee at the forefront of dealing with the Minister of State, as well as the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. It was an excellent committee dealing with Brexit and the issues arising from the situation in which we find ourselves. As Deputy Mattie McGrath stated, Brexit went off the agenda for a time while the pandemic was the most urgent thing we had to deal with as politicians. Now, however, we are back to the reality of dealing with this Brexit situation before us.

I come to what the Minister of State spoke about last in her responses, namely, supports for farmers. I am fearful concerning soundings coming from the talks about Government formation. I refer to some of the aspirations of one of the parties, the Green Party, and the concerns, as we will call them, which that party has regarding exports. Many politicians from all political parties have done everything possible to build up trade for our farming communities over the years, within the EU and outside of it in Egypt and other countries. Now, though, we are hearing soundings that live exports to non-EU countries should cease or begin to cease.

We must remember each one of us represents farmers. Every politician elected to this House, no matter where his or her constituency is, represents farmers. I state that because we are a farming nation. We very much appreciate our local and international businesses, of course, as well as our tourism industry, but we are a farming nation. Any politician that forgets that should not be a politician at all.

It is our job to work hard for our farmers and to ensure we hold on to the markets we have and grow them. We should definitely not be talking about stopping live exports to any country, be it a non-EU country or not. I want to know what exactly is going to be put in place. I ask that because the Minister of State knows as well as anybody that we had very good schemes in the past, such as the rural environment protection scheme, REPS. The original REP scheme was a good scheme for farmers and a great scheme for the countryside. As we are talking about the green agenda, no scheme was better than REPS for our countryside because it helped farmers to undertake jobs on their farms that they might not have had the wherewithal to take on board otherwise.

When it comes to the provision of storage for effluent, the erection of slatted sheds, concreting yards and better cattle handling facilities, all the schemes that were in place at that time were very good. To be honest, every scheme that has replaced them in latter years has been inferior to those which went before. They are very much diluted. Younger farmers entering the industry now do not have half as much available to them as young farmers had five or even 20 years ago.

I ask that the Minister concentrate during the negotiations and never forget we are a farming nation. We must protect our market share of the tourism sector and all our other markets, whether it is the small shopkeeper or the bigger shop, the business people or the self-employed, but we must also remember the farmers who have always been the backbone of this country.

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