Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This Bill has been passed by the EU. I have many concerns about this Bill. If one looks at the cost it will impose on farmers, we have always seen here from the medical side of things the way different measures have gone. What the Minister has done will mean that if the farmer wants a medicine, he will have got to go to the vet and the paper trail that will follow this has a cost. The farmer will pay the cost because of the paper trail.

The Minister then came along and said that one must register, and register online. The Minister might learn from registration on different systems the Government puts up online that it is nothing but confusing. I have seen recently where now they are doing the safe pass online. They have told us that people who have been passing the safe pass course for many years are now failing it because of the online system and yet the Minister will now complicate this system by putting people online. Does the Minister think farmers have nothing else to do but sit at home, go online, press this button and press that button when the next thing is the Internet fails? They have work to do.

What farmers trusted in previously were the independent people who came and gave them their medicines. If one looks at the stores that were carrying the medicines, it was not only medicines that they were carrying. They were carrying a full range of products for the farming industry but yet - the Minister himself comes from the farming industry - the Minister has complicated the hell out of it. Now the Minister is taking away another product from a business that was set up in a local area. How many creameries have closed in local areas? I counted 11 local creameries in County Limerick in the past three years. Now one has to drive to Limerick if one wants certain products because the Government closed them down. It depends on what co-operative one is with. People locally, in my area, now have to drive to Limerick. The Government is talking about lowering emissions but yet it puts more time on the farmer as if he had nothing else to do but sit into the car and drive to Limerick, taking half an hour out of his day there and half an hour back. It is as if they had nothing else to do but travel around the country when they already are under pressure trying to do the work that they have to do at home.

The paperwork that follows this type of legislation is off the wall. All the Minister will do is put the small farmers in this country out of business. By putting the small farmer in this country out of business, the Minister will have killed the local economy and what they were giving back on the circular economy to the community.

The Minister has also destroy the next generation. The Minister has taken the next generation completely out of it. They look at their mothers and their fathers working the land and say to their friends that it is not worth it and that they will head off to Australia and leave the land. They see the hard work that their parents, uncles, aunts or whoever have put in to try and keep the family farm. By doing this, the Minister is closing down businesses that were supplying locally to the farmers. The Minister is taking another product off of the businesses and all he has done is put another cost, a prescription cost, onto the farmer. Well done on that, Minister.

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