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

I commend the Rural Group on bringing this motion to the House and for giving us an opportunity to debate what are very important issues, particularly in respect of the cost of living crisis that we have been discussing in some detail and that affects probably all workers and every family across the State. It is important to recognise that there is an extra burden on many rural families, in particular farming families. Of course, whether you live in a urban or a rural area, you are faced with the challenges of high rents, high childcare costs, high insurance costs and high mortgage rates - all the areas we have been discussing - but there has been a particular issue with regard to increases in the cost of energy, especially motor fuel, that place an additional burden on farming families and that is quite clearly evident in the price of fertiliser, which has already been discussed.

Fundamentally, there is a problem that was exposed in the remarks of the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, who, I regret, is not here. He still maintains that the CAP budget and funding for farm supports has increased when it quite clearly has decreased as a result of the poor negotiation that the Government engaged in with respect to the European Union budget. There will be fewer supports for farm families over the round of the next Common Agricultural Policy than there was in the previous one. That is a statement of fact and yet the Minister continues to sell as spin that that is not the case. It is a three-card trick because the Government also claims, as it did in last night's debate, that €1.5 billion of carbon tax funds are ring-fenced to go to farmers in agri-environment schemes when that €1.5 billion, if it materialises, is only plugging some of the hole that is evident in the Common Agricultural Policy as a result of the same bad negotiations at EU budget level. Nobody can argue with what are statements of fact, in that over the next five years farming families will be paying more in carbon tax and getting less in farm supports while being asked to do more in relation to their environmental obligations.

Farm families were, as all of us were, eagerly waiting to see what big measures would be introduced in the Government's cost of living package. Can the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, imagine being from a farm family at the top end of north Monaghan and waiting in anticipation to see what supports the Government would introduce in its cost of living package only to find out that Luas tickets will be 20% cheaper? That is welcome for those who have access to public transport but the fact that it was incorporated into a cost of living crisis that is most acutely felt by rural communities shows how out of touch the Government is in respect of the services that are in place.

I welcome the measures announced last night involving a €7 million package for pig farmers, although I agree with previous speakers that it will not go far enough. Two weeks ago I raised this in a Topical Issues debate with the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. We had what I thought was a constructive debate. We outlined the need for a financial package. We also outlined the need for the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, and banks to step up to the plate in support of pig farmers and of other vulnerable farmers. The Minister indicated that he had met them and was expecting some improvement but no improvement has come.

I also outlined the difficulties in terms of staff shortages at processing plants that still have not been resolved. Even though the Government stated that it has put in place the measures to address those staff shortages through permits, they still have not been resolved.

We need to go beyond the rhetoric to the delivery of supports. If we want to support those workers, families and communities that are struggling to make ends meet, the answers are simple. The answers have been outlined quite clearly by Sinn Féin. We need a cost of living cash payment for those who need it most. We need to see a support for renters. They need one month's rent back in their pocket and they need to see a rent freeze for at least three years. We need to increase the minimum wage. We need to increase all working-age social welfare payments. We need to extend the fuel allowance by at least two weeks and we need to ensure that we cut the cost of childcare services by one third. We need to scrap the proposed increase in carbon tax.

The disgraceful actions of Russia in Ukraine will likely lead to EU sanctions of some sort. If those sanctions impact negatively on Irish workers, families and farmers, the EU needs to bring forward a package. I would ask the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, to make that point at European Council level.

See this speech in context