Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to speak on this issue. I do not like the agenda for all these meetings when I see that item two is security and defence. Our neutrality is certainly being steadily undermined. I see President Biden will also join this meeting on its first day.

I thank local communities, daoine na hÉireann and those in every hamlet in Ireland who are putting their hands up again. Deputy Fitzpatrick spoke earlier. I do not often agree with him but I do on this occasion. It is time the Government stopped huffing and puffing, and talking about funds, and looked for the emergency funds that are there to support the families who are offering to take in these unfortunate people from this savage war of attrition in Ukraine. There is a fund. What the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, gave to pig farmers was a pittance. They thought they had a good meeting with him. Grown men, who were farmers for 40 years, cried at that meeting in Kildare. The poor fellow is at sea and does not have a clue. Farmers want a €70 million fund at least; otherwise the pig industry will go the way of the beet industry. Where will we be then?

I salute Anthony Laste and Anthony Broxson from Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir, who made a journey with valuable, vital health supplies and proper equipment that is tailor-made to what people in Ukraine need in this crisis situation. Anthony Broxson is on his way back but Anthony Laste is trying to get the father of his wife, who is Ukrainian, back home. It is proving very difficult as his father-in-law does not have a passport because the Russians invaded part of his country some years ago and they have no passports there. The Department of Foreign Affairs is trying to help. I hope it will.

We need to help. Ní neart gur chur le chéile. We will help but the Government is talking about it in the same way it is talking about the fuel crisis. It had a toolbox to bring down the fuel crisis. I ask it to support the farmers. We will be in fierce trouble. To talk of planting wheat on 21 March is madness. Anybody who knows anything about land knows spring wheat has to be set no later than February. Winter wheat can be set in October-November, definitely. The Government does not even know the basics of farming, which it should. It should support our own people and farmers.

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