Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I mean no disrespect to the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Burke, who is a farmer but it is a scandalous situation that we are making statements on agriculture and not one Minister or Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is here to listen to us.

That shows the importance of it.

There are a few solutions required. First, we know that lamb from Australia and New Zealand has flooded the market. That is because of Covid-19 in China. Brexit has also caused a problem. Funds are accessible for any Government to make sure it can give it to the sheep sector. Sean McNamara and all the different organisations in the sheep sector have made it clear what is required.

There is more to it than that, however. If we leave the sheep farmers in their current situation, they will leave the sector. This is the time of year when everyone talks about Easter lamb. The sad reality is that every lamb that will be killed this week to be made ready for the markets, between the price of meal and the input costs, will die in debt, to be quite frank about it. In the livestock sector, at least the price of cattle went up and the extra costs were somewhat absorbed. In the sheep sector however, the price of lamb collapsed completely. It may have gone up by 10 cent last week, but the market is flooded because of the number of hoggets there are because of what happened in external markets. The Minister needs to intervene in that or we are going to have hoggets and spring lamb, which are the lambs born over recent months, coming together, basically two generations of lambs coming together, which will smother the market completely. The Minister needs to intervene and put a package together to rescue the sheep sector. Otherwise, we will lose that sector.

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