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

I will have to revise a number of my remarks because I had very much hoped I would be having a discussion with the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine this evening. Of course, that is no disrespect to the Minister of State.

One of the fundamental problems I had with the Minister's approach to the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, strategic plan is that he refused even to indulge us with a debate prior to submitting the plan. He refused to bring it before the House for approval and refused to bring it before the Oireachtas committee for consideration. Perhaps if he had done either of those things, we in this House and those of us who understand the importance of the Common Agricultural Policy to the future of not only Irish farming but the rural communities that depend on our family farmers, collectively, would now be in a better position. As it stands, the Minister essentially has to own the correspondence he has received from the European Commission because the strategic plan was his and his alone. He was very forceful in that regard. That was despite the fact that he resisted some of what I would describe as the progressive measures that were sought at EU level in respect of the next round of the Common Agricultural Policy. The reason he gave for opposing those measures at a European level was that they should be made at a national level and made democratically, whereby those people who will be impacted would have an opportunity to engage, but then he did not follow through, as I said.

There is quite an amount to take in from the observation. It is a detailed critique. I saw one report describe the European Commission as "less than pleased" with the Irish CAP strategic plan, which seems a fair, if understated, description given that, essentially, the Commission has rejected the Irish CAP strategic plan. I do not agree with the view and the analysis in everything the European Commission has said. In some areas it makes points we in this House made in advance of this plan being developed within Agriculture House, that is, points about redistributive measures, particularly in respect of organics and the need to promote and support farmers making transitions to mixed farming or other types of farming. Some of the aspects of the report are frankly mind-boggling. There is a line in the correspondence that states: "... the Commission has doubts [as to] whether [or not] what is proposed goes far enough. In this context, it particularly has in mind the substantial growth in the size of the Irish dairy herd in recent years...". The substantial growth in the size of the Irish dairy herd is a direct result of the EU's removal of quotas, which led to an expansion of the herd in Ireland and also a corresponding, or almost corresponding, decrease in the size of the herd in other EU member states.

My questions, which I hope will be dealt with in the Minister of State's response, are as follows. What will the Minister's approach now be in how he deals with this? Does he intend to engage with all stakeholders? Does he intend to engage with this House before he responds to the European Commission? What status does he give the comments the European Commission has made? Does he consider its reflections to be binding on him to make amendments or does he consider them simply to be commentary that he can ignore?

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