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

There is nothing in what the Minister said that will allow me or any other Deputy to convince the farmers that have been in touch with us that the Government understands the challenges they are facing and that it is taking action to resolve them. Essentially, the Minister has highlighted very well what the problem is, but he has not outlined sufficiently what the Government is going to do about it. Letters to the European Commission are well and good and are important in regard to fertiliser costs, but my question dealt with much broader issues in terms of input costs that are facing our farming families.

I will focus on one specific issue. Many of the challenges farmers are facing can be directly attributed to Brexit and the impact it has had. Will the Minister ensure the Brexit adjustment reserve is utilised to provide direct support to farming families to meet the rising input costs? To date, the only people in the agrifood sector who have got a cent of the Brexit adjustment reserve fund are processors. Larry Goodman and the meat factories have been getting money towards promotion of their product while the people who need support most have not got anything as of yet. Will the Minister change that?

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