Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There is no other sector in this country that would be asked to move money from the top to the bottom and be expected to accept it. Our teachers would not accept it, nor would our nurses or other medical staff but our very own Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine thinks that the farmers of Ireland, using our natural resources to the best of their ability, should accept convergence. They should accept money being taken from the good, productive farmer and given to where it can never be of any benefit. For example, in the Civil Service, the idea would be that those who receive extra would not do an extra ounce of work. The Secretary General would not deserve to be paid for the hours he or she worked and for his or her productivity but money would be given to the cleaner who would not be asked to do anything extra. That is the model that the Government and the EU expects Irish farmers to accept. I cannot believe that it is still on the table for discussion.

If there is anybody in this country who thinks farmers are getting money, hand over fist, let them think again. The Department is stopping them from doing their job in the way they did 50 years ago. Everything farmers put on the land is questioned. The Minister spoke about derogations. When he was in opposition, he lobbied for a derogation for diquat for potato farmers in this country but now he is telling us, as Minister, that the derogation is only for one year. We are discussing derogations tonight as if they will go on forever but derogations are meaningless. They are an entrapment of sorts, to get people to agree to things until the Department decides to change them, in line with the EU. That is why I have no faith in anything that becomes derogated; it either is or it is not.

I can assure the Minister that if the pilot scheme on convergence goes ahead in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, it will be the end of the idea in the agricultural sector. That is where we should start and that is where it will end. The EU and the Department should wake up because the farmers of Ireland are not asleep.

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