Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Independent Group and Deputy Pringle on bringing this motion before the House. The specific proposal within the good agricultural and environmental condition 2, GAEC 2, framework with which this motion has an issue is one which, for the first time in the history of the Common Agricultural Policy, will differentiate agricultural land, calling into question whether carbon-rich soils will qualify into the future as eligible hectares for payment.

In the context of European regulations and directives, as has already been alluded to, exact words are incredibly important and they carry specific meanings. The Council has adopted what many would consider the most extreme wording of any of the parties to the negotiations that has threatened the agricultural status into the future of many of our family farmers. That agricultural standard is what is used to determine whether these lands are eligible hectares. Under the CAP, "agricultural status" and "eligible hectares" are the words of crucial meaning. Both are sacrosanct to farmers because without them, many farmers would no longer be economically viable. Farmers receive their basic farm payments and access to virtually every single agricultural scheme based on their land having agricultural status and thus being deemed as eligible hectares. No section of our farming community would accept a move against the agricultural status of their land. By differentiating those farmers from others, we are opening the door to further differentiation down the line.

Farmers, particularly those in the north and the west, have been down similar roads with the Department before. Natura 2000 designations came with a derogation but in 2017, of the 927 that were assessed, only 13 were deemed eligible. With a record like that I can understand why the Department is not inclined to use the term "derogation", even though the assistant secretary referred to it as such at a meeting of the agriculture committee last week. The simple truth of the matter is that the wording of this proposal bears a striking resemblance to that same derogation in the Natura 2000 derogations. It is a derogation that, along with the old rural environment protection, REP, scheme, was used as the carrot to the designation's stick, a derogation that, in the end, screwed and continues to screw farmers with regard to that directive. Here we are again with the Department lining up to give those same communities another kick in the teeth and telling them it is orthodontic.

The Department may ask 50,000 farmers to essentially trust it. That is what the Minister has asked us to do. If it is a choice between the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, with its record, or an organisation such as the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association, INHFA, I trust the members of the INHFA. They are the people who are familiar with how new regulations override old derogations and they are familiar with the explanations as to why an existing derogation can no longer be used, explanations that often only make sense to mystical interpreters of directives and regulations in the Department itself. Farmers are being asked time and again to meet ever-rising environmental standards and Irish farmers have risen to the challenges time and again and absorbed the costs, by and large, within their margins. What is required in the next CAP is not another attack on Irish family farms but a guarantee that we will support our farmers to continue to deliver for rural Ireland, the Irish economy and the environment. Farmers have always delivered for us and what they need now is a Minister and a Department that will deliver for them.

As well as honesty and an upfront and determined attitude, we need a fair CAP. The Minister has yet to give the commitment that he will undo the gross inequality at the heart of the Common Agricultural Policy that allows people like Larry Goodman to draw down €500,000 per year while farmers in the Minister's constituency are struggling to make ends meet on pittances. That needs to be addressed in the next CAP and the Minister needs to give a commitment that he will deliver that. Farmers need fair prices, not the tokenistic and minimalistic approach the Minister has outlined for the unfair trading practices and regulations, which were unimaginative and insufficiently ambitious in the first place. They need a meat regulator with real teeth to break the stranglehold of the retailers and processors and they need fair play from the Department.

The Department needs to start seeing the family farmers of Ireland as partners, not as enemies and people to catch out and put another penalty on. It needs the three Fs, as I have mentioned to the Minister on a number of occasions, namely, fair play, fair prices and a fair CAP. This has to be a new departure for Irish family farmers.

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