Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I very much endorse what Deputy Fitzmaurice said. As he indicated, we will prepare a Bill if the Government falls short on this. It is generally accepted that we live in an information age. Information is everything. He who has information has power. All of the information and all of the power reside with the processors because all of the information available to the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, and his Department is available to the processors. They know how many cattle are in this country at any given time and the age of each and every one of those cattle. If they have a rule that those cattle must be sold at 30 months, they know how much they can offer because they know what the demand is because they control the market. There are only four of them. There are two very big players and two slightly smaller players, but the four of them control the whole market so they know what the demand is and what the supply is because they can just look at the computer, see how many cattle are approaching 30 months and ask themselves what they will pay.

They also know that every time the Government gives money to producers, who, for want of a better word, are being screwed - that is not unparliamentary language - by the practices of those processors, they can take that into account. If the Government gives €100 per head to compensate farmers for the fact that prices were so low because the processors can manipulate the situation to make them low, they can take €100 off the price of cattle and take that for themselves. That is precisely what they have done. They have forward contracts with certain producers - not very many - but they do have some forward contracts. They also have farmers who provide so-called bed and breakfast arrangements knowns as feedlots. These are often farmers who over-extended, found themselves in difficulty and were not in a position to keep going so they will now house cattle owned by the processors. Of course, processors can take those cattle out of the feedlots when demand is high and supply is low from ordinary farmers and use that to manipulate the market so they have all the levers of power and farmers have none.

The only power ordinary farmers have involves live exports and, of course, the Department makes it very difficult for live exports from Ireland in terms of the number of inspections Department vets carry out on boats. Of course, boats have to be of a certain standard but there should be a common European standard. There is a suspicion among farmers regardless of whether it is properly founded or not that it is being made overly difficult for people to export live animals in order to protect the processors. All of the levers of power are with the processors and none of them are with the producers.

Like the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, I grew up on a farm and know what is like to stay up all night with a cow that is calving. I do not do so at the moment as I engage in dry stock but I know what it is like to pay X amount for cattle in the spring and be hammered in the autumn because I have no idea how many cattle are going to be coming on stream in the autumn but the processors do so they have that power.

I am asking the Government to intervene in order to level the playing field. That is what this is about. Unlike the approach adopted by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, as referred to by Deputy Tóibín, the Spanish Government has introduced a bill to ban selling cattle at below the cost of production. We need to look at that.

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