Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is a quite unique initiative that the Government and I are bringing forward with the objective of ensuring that primary producers, in particular farmers and fishers, get respect and that they get paid properly a fair margin of what is available in the marketplace for their massive amount of work over one or two years to produce an animal for market. As a country that exports 90% of the food we produce, it is the international marketplace that determines the final outcome. We must try to optimise that in every way we can.

The core objective and the reason for coming forward with this office is to ensure there is an independent office with the credibility and capacity to shine a light on what is happening in the marketplace and the supply chain and, therefore, to try to ensure farmers are getting fair play and, where they are not, that it is called out. That office will have any powers possible to follow that through.

I have taken a very collaborative approach to how we can develop this. I look forward to continuing to do that through pre-legislative scrutiny and in bringing legislation to the House.

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